A STRIKE IN QUEENSLAND

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 53, 31 August 1925, Page 6

A STRIKE IN QUEENSLAND

A strike directed against a Government is in a different category from ordinary industrial disputes in which wage-earning interests are ranged against private capital. Stoppage of work in a State service involves a fight by a section against the majority. It is essentially indefensible, as it is an attempt to obtain by force what the , people themselves, through their elected representatives, have refused to sanction. The Queensland railway strike is even worse than this, because the Government in office is definitely and wholly Labour, Nor is it merely nominally Labour. Socialists in this country and elsewhere have been long in the habit of pointing to it as» the one Australian Labour Administration which was really true to its name. No genuine democrat, no pure-blood-ed Socialist, we have been led to believe, could oppose this inspired Administration. What are we now to conclude? Either the Queensland Labour Government has suddenly and sadly fallen from grace, or the striking railwaymen are mere masquerading capitalists and conservatives. One may be curious to learn where, in this dispute, the full-girthed, silk-hatted capitalist of tho Labour journal cartoons may be introduced.

Even the keenest Socialist apologist must find difficulty in explaining this strike. Either an accepted Labour Government has been wrong or a union of workers is being unreasonable. On the evidence at present available we are.inclined to believe that both parts of this explanation are correct. The railwaymen are on strike (at least this is the pretext) because they have been forbidden to hold stop-work meetings. Surely this does not betoken reasonableness in a service which demands continuity of operations and where stoppages for any cause must seriously hinder work. The dictatorial attitude of the Union is further shown by its' methods. When advised that men attending stop-work meetings would not be allowed to resume that day, the Union decided to hold such meetings daily until the letter was withdrawn. No Government, whatever its colour or sympathies, could accept such an • ultimatum and retain the respect of the people. It was bound to take up the challenge. The Queensland Government has done so, but it has been wrong, because it has led its supporters to believe in the past that it was prepared to act as a class Government and to take its instructions, not from the people, but from a section of the people. Sooner or later such conduct was certain to lead to disaster, and to produce some demand so plainly against the popular interest that it had to be resisted. Unfortunately it has taken the Queensland Government many years to see this. Labour Parties are the same there as elsewhere. In Opposition they denounce policies for what they allege to be class bias, but all the time they work for power upon the narrowest class basis for themselves, and when they obtain power they use it— until some element within the class makes the pace too hot.