WHAT IS A LOCK-OUT ?

Evening Post, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 23 March 1903, Page 6

WHAT IS A LOCK-OUT ?

| . COMBINED ACTION TIIE CRUCIAL TEST. Mr. E. Tregenr, (Secretary of tho- Labour -Department, who has just returned from Auckland, whither ho w«» sent by the Minister for Labour to endeavour to promote a settlement in the furniture trade dispute, wua interviewed this morning by «. Post reporter. Tho reporter asked for a general statement summing up the principle involved in tho dispute. Mr. Tregeur said : "With regard to tho „ furniture trado dispute, it involves a, question of principle, and really touches the givut question of combines. Thoro can be no doubt that so long as a master does not care to employ n mutt, ho in, nnd mtwt be, ut perfect liberty to dischurgo him. Tho man must also havo the same right with regard to tho cmployor, and full liberty to leave york which he does not enro to perform at the wage ho is offered. But grunting this, it will be cliillcult to know where this 'liberty of tho subject,' begins 'and ends, when there is a case of combination. If a worker wishes to leave Ids mus:er's employ, is he at liberty to combine with his fellows and oay : 'On a certain day the whole of u» will resign our employment and will cripple our employers and break their contracts — knowing they havo goods to deliver — and wo shall thereby striko them a crushing blow' T Almost any one who considers tho question from an impartial standpoint must see the immense difference between the two actions ,, — the individual action and the combined one. I do not wish to put tho employers' case on the sune line, because tlint case is going to be decided by the Arbitration Court, and the matter will bo fully investigated. But speaking generally, the whole question turns on this difference between individual action nnd combined action. Also, it will bo seen oL once that when un individual resigns his employment or the employer kciulb him away, he muy liavc a chance of employment in another workshop, but when the whole tra<le is closed n gainst him, he is in a most desperate position, and one of which tho Stuto should tuko cognifinnce."

Messrs. Bidoy, Mecch ami Co. advortiso | an extensive sale at their rooms to-morrow, 1 at 2 D.m.