"MEN IN DISTRESS."

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 413, 23 January 1909, Page 4

"MEN IN DISTRESS."

"We are not strikers, but simply men in distress who would be the recipients of charity from the other unions.'' - In this touching language the spokesman of the Huntly miners describes the poor fellows who cannot bring themselves to accept wages from a body of employers who refuse to sacrifice certain workmen at the dictate of the trades-union agitators. _ It is quite a mistaken iiotion that physical hunger and family affections are human needs of greater importance.to the-more advanced of trades-unionists than dignity and the; lust : of pride!; .Bfo distress that people who are not trades-unionists can experience can be half] so sharp and bitter as'the distress of the Huntly miners atthe'refusal of their,employers to break oh the wheel a handful'j of men who have so far forgotten themselves as to let justice and reasonableness enter into their • dealings with the peo'p|e_ who pay their wages. But for men in distress, the miners look a little too much like industrial highwaymen. Their pjea would' move more hearts if it were not accompanied i by'such: a deal of skilful policy. It is difficult to feel truly' sympathetic at a weeping, tale of distress |when a battery of weapons peeps from narrator's bolt, and his armed ; reinforcements are en 7 v camped at a little distance. : But we need not. examine the, sorrowful story of the miners' spokesman very' closely. The public is thoroughly well aware of the merits of the case. What is of more importance is the" meaning of the whole affair to the public which has ; acquiesced in the construction of a mass of protective legislation on thi workers' behalf. As might havo been expected, tho men havo no doubt that thoy are as far beyond the reach of the law is ever. They know 'the Government from Alpha to Omega., They . know that 1 while Sir : Joseph Waiid holds office' they are.abovo the law. They know that Mii.\ R. M'Kenzie, who haa been dispatched by the Government to the seat of war, is\merely. tho agent to whom'they are to dictate terms; As a result of a conference between the Minister and tho Union executive a basis ■.'■'■■.■ 1 ..

of settlement has, it is stated, been arrived at. This will, however, have ,to be submitted to. the members' of the Union and to the Directors of the Company. We may call. attention, by the way, to the figure, which poor Me. Hogq has,been cutting ; sincc Sir Joseph Ward made the rather stupid joke of appointing him Minister for Labour. The time has come when the public must realiso what is going on. The Arbitration Act, assuming that ,thc Government's refusal to afford any testing of the point would be justified on an investigation by the proper authority, has broken down utterly. The Government has announced, not in-', so many words, but yet in effect, that the Act is powerless to prevent'or punish a strike in the coal industry backed by the whole body of Labour. The proofs accumulate to justify every word that has been said by those who know that the Arbitration Act in its present form is, and will continue to be, waste paper so far as Labour is concerned. Yet the Government holds grimly to a measure that can produce'nothing but injustice and'a great waste of industry. Employers,, if they desire to escape from the tyranny of an Act maintained simply as a bribe'to Labour, had almost better consider without delay whether, in their own interests arid the interests of the country, they should not treat the Act as it is treated by Labour and by the-Government.