The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1924. BOGUS ISSUES AND REALITIES

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 179, 23 April 1924, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1924. BOGUS ISSUES AND REALITIES

With the railway strike definitely under way, the official representatives of the railwaymen appear to be anxious to side-track the real issue. The president of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (Mr. Connelly) asserts, for instance, that the men are fighting for “the right of the worker to secure a minimum wage on which he and his family can live decently, and the retention of the 44-hour week.”

As anyone knows who has troubled to get into touch with the facts, this statement by the president of the A.S.R.S. is quite misleading. The railwaymen were offered a perfectly open opportunity of making out a case in support of their demands. They elected instead to strike.

In the circumstances, it is inaccurate to say that they are fighting either for a decent living wage or for the retention of the 44hour week. They are attempting to extort by direct action concessions they have refused to submit to detailed examination and discussion. It should be plain to them as well as to the general public that the only possible inference to be drawn from this attitude is that they cannot face such an examination and discussion of their claims—in fact, that they are fighting for concessions they -could not hope to obtain by orderly and constitutional methods. The official representatives of the strikers are plainly in error, also, in referring to the affair as a fight between the railway employees and the Government. It is not the Government, but the people—of whom an overwhelming proportion in this country are either themselves wage or salary earners, or the dependants of wage or salary earners —who own the railways, and pay the wages of the railwaymen. In this strike the issue is definitely between the railwaymen and the public—the public consisting in great part of the fellow wageearners of the railwaymen. The whole duty of the Government in the matter is to hold the balance fairly between the railwaymen and the rest of the community. Attempts to portray the Government as a ruthlessly oppressive employer become quite ridiculous when it is remembered that the Government is merely representing and acting for the people of the Dominion, most of whom are wage-earners. On the evidence in sight it appears that if the railwaymen succeeded in their present attempt they would get more than their share of what is available for the payment of wages. This, of course, they could only do at the expense of the rest of the wage-earners of the community. The suggestion that the railwaymen are upholding the cause of the whole body of wage-earners is a foolish pretence which falls to the ground,as soon as it is examined.

Extra wages for the railwaymen cannot be distilled from the atmosphere. If they get more than their share, other workers must get less than their share. This, of course, would hold good whether railway wages were supplemented from the Consolidated Fund or from the proceeds of increased freights and fares. It is perfectly plain that the railwaymen have put themselves in the wrong. If they had a case that would bear examination they would have everything to gain by submitting this case to the Arbitration Court, or to the alternative tribunal they were offered when they abruptly broke off negotiations. Their resort to direct action implies that they are intent' only on improving their own position, regardless of what this may mean to the rest of the community.

One of the later developments in the strike situation is an announcement by Mr. T. M. Wilford, M.P., that ho and his part}' support the men in their principal demands. Mr. Wilford observes that his party does not support the strike method. At the same time his attitude towards the present strike is not easily distinguished from one of support. From his own remarks it would appear that he accepts the ex-parte statements by the railwaymen of their own position, and has given little thought to the extent to which the interests of the rest of the people of the country are involved. Possibly he is influenced in some measure at least by the fact that his constituency is generally known as a railway employees’ constituency, containing, as it does, the big Petone workships.

While it involves a heavy loss of wages by the railwaymen, the strike is inflicting a great deal of extra expense and inconvenience on other sections of the community. It is already clear, however, that the worst effects of the railway hold-up will be. mitigated in a considerable degree by the extended use of motor transport. Should it last for any length of time, as seems not at all unlikely, the strike may have the effect of permanently intensifying motor competition with the railways. The position they have created is not in any respect one with which the railwaymen have reason to be satisfied. Sooner or later, presumably, they must resume the negotiations which they broke, off for no sufficient reason that has yet been disclosed. They are not improv.ing their prospects by doing what they can meantime to make things uncomfortable for the long-suffering public.