LESSONS FROM AUSTRALIA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 11110, 6 May 1911, Page 4

LESSONS FROM AUSTRALIA.

The deputation of Renmark fruitgrowers to the Chief Secretary of South Australia, recorded in one of to-day's cable messages, is the latest happening in one.of the most interesting struggles in the history of the Lnbour movement in Australia. The appeal of tho deputation was for protection against the terrorism and lawlessness of certain trades unions, which, in their war against the fanners, .have .resorted to the most serious crimes. The story of the struggle has some valuable lessons for this country, where the Labour leaders are striving might and main to follow the example of the unions in Austrdin. It, is at once a lesson in the lengths to which trades unionism may be induced to go, and in the success that'employers may achieve by a policy of firmness and courage. In 1909 the United Labourers' Union of South Australia and the Renmark Fruitgrowers' Association agreed upon a scale of wages and conditions, and last year the growers, although it wns a disastrous ono for them, made no attempt to alter the agreement. Just before the harvesting began last February, the Union suddenly demanded an increaso in wages from 7s. to Ss. a day, feeling certain, of course, that the growers would bo obliged to pay if they did not wish to sec the ripe fruit falling and rotting. The Union was asked if it would accept Bs. for the harvest season only, provided that arbitration was resorted to as to the future. The Union, feeling that its position was unassailable, rejected this proposal. It rejected also the proposal that Bs. should be paid pending an appeal to the Arbitration Court, and refused a final offer of private arbitration. It then commanded a. strike.

Instead of surrendering; the growers at once proceeded to make their own arrangements for the harvesting, but the Union was only at the beginning of its resources. Tho unionists working on the Murray River steamers were warned that the fruit was "scab" fruit and should not be forwarded. They loyally obeyed the Union official's and left the fruit to perish on the wharves. The steamer-owners, however, unable to enter into the spirit of the thing, determined to deliver the fruit, union or no union. They obtained other hands, worked themselves, sent their clerks to the wharves, and got tho fruit away. Now, it happens that the Produce Depot in Adelaide is conducted by the Government, and the Union therefore ordered the unionists employed at the depot to refrain from handling the fruit. And the Union officials then sat back and smiled tho smile of content and triumph, for the Government is a Labour Government. But its happiness turned to horror and anger when the unionists at the depot were ordered to handle the fruit, and, refusing,, were dismissed by.the foreman. An instant appeal was confidently made to the Minister for Agriculture, who replied with thess horrifying words: "I do not care a hang if all the unions in the world arc against me. That fruit is to be shipped, and I will ship it." Although it had thus signally failed to settle the matter, the Union was still able to do something. It began by passing a resolution that Mil. AVilson, the Minister for Agriculture, was "a traitor to the working class" because he refused to over-rule the foreman who had "sacked" the men who had refused to handle tho fruit that had been carried by the steamship owners who had defied the Union that had endeavoured to ruin the fruitgrowers who had declined to submit to a flagrant breach of agreement. "Loyalty to the workers" is, obviously, a very delicate and complex thing in Australia. A couple of months ago four shops in Renmark belonging to"Mn. Kuhlimxx,

a member of the Fruitgrowers' Association, were burned clown. On April 10 a horse belonging to Mii. Kuhlmann died in agony ten minutes after drinking from a trough in his .yard, and another which had visited the same trough became violently ill after drinking a mouthful. On Monday last a cable message brought news of a sensational shooting affair at Renmark arising out of a nightwatehinan's discovery of a man attempting to fire the Fruit Packing Union's shed. The man turned a revolver upon the nightwatchman, disabled him, and escaped. The activities of those antagonistic to the fruitgrowers have produced a reign of terror, and the victims or potential victims arc talking of taking the law into their own hands. It is rarely that militant trades unionism presses crime into its service, but the happenings at Renmark are an index of the temper i of unionism in Australia. This violence is the natural fruit of the language used by certain unionist leaders, and especially of the leaders of the Australian Workers' Union, who have preached the gospel that the non-unionist's life should be made "a hell upon earth," that it is the duty of a unionist, if he sees a non-unionist drowning, to let him drown, or, if he sees a "scab" being murdered, to pass by. This is the direction along which the workers of New Zealand are being urged by some of the demagogues of the Labour Councils. We do not suggest that they are urging such acts of violence or anything of the kind, but the direction in which they are attempting to lead their followers will, if they are success: ful, take them on to this goal. It is pleasanter to contemplate the more cheerful lesson taught by the Renmark struggle, namely, that it is wiser to defend a just cause against tyranny than to surrender it.