THE FRENCH STRIKE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 470, 31 March 1909, Page 6

THE FRENCH STRIKE.

• Although the ending of the French strike must be a relief to the Government, it is not unlikely that the trouble may begin afresh sooner or later. Before a final settlement was arrived at, it was reported that there was jubilation amongst tho officials, who claimed that they obtained virtually all they asked for—just like New Zealand strikers. The affair is hot one which the New Zealand public can afford to take no interest in. Nothing that relates to the attitude of Governments to large breaches of industrial peaco can be uninteresting to us. It is very curious that the Clemenceau Government should have been the one. to inspire tho French State employees with the feeling of arrogant consciousness of their strength, which is now being exhibited. In the past the Government has taken a very firm stand in its relation to the Government's officials. It went so far in 1007 as to forbid them to form trades-unions. The Premier laid down the' principlo on which he intended to act on April 7 of that year. A Civil Servant, he declared, was a member of a hierarchical society, in which he possessed privileges not possessed by the ordinary working man, and ho therefore owed to the community special duties, among which was the renunciation of the right to abandon work by concerted action. To break the public contract, by which Civil Servants were bound to tho nation itself, was no ordinary strike; it was a positive legal offence in that it thwarted the normal activity of the national sovereignty. The subject came up for discussion by the Chamber of Deputies on May 7, and on' May 10, M. Jaures, tho Socialist leader, undertook to show that the Government's decision was improper inasmuch as the general striko of Stato officials which was

postulated as a possible danger that required to be guarded against was virtually impossible. His argument was theoretically sound enough: "In the case of a strike among Stato officials, which was not backed by public opinion, the 6tat jmtron would be led to fill the places of the men on strike by others, and it would bo impossible for them to socuro the triumph of their claims." M. Briand, the Minister for Public Instruction, was entrusted with the main dofence. The essence of his argument against the liberty of State officials to form trades-unions was the contention that there was no real analogy between the nation and an individual employer, who was really to a largo extent the master of his men. Tho debate, which extended over several days, ended with a victory for the Government and M. Clbjibkceau was everywhere applauded for his determination, as tho London Times put it, "to deal firmly with demands that threatened to tamper with the whole fabric of the State." The cable dispatches which wo have been receiving in the last few days certainly do not indicate very clearly such a weakness in the Government's attitude as would justify the claim of the strikers that they have gained practically all they desired. But it is evident that the Government displayed a much more conciliatory spirit than can bo afforded when it is a question of protecting "the normal' activity of the national sovereignty." Wo had in the recent tramways strike in Sydney a lesson upon tho value of unflinching and unconciliatory firmnoss on tho part of tho Government in the case of a strike of State employees. The French strike appearß to yield another lesson—the danger of conciliatory methods in such a case.