Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. TUESDAY, JUNE 18th., 1912. SYNDICALISM’S STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 June 1912, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. TUESDAY, JUNE 18th., 1912. SYNDICALISM’S STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS.

In the crisis Great Britain is passing through we are having some experience of syndicalism—that policy of a general strike under which not only are the trades immediately concerned in the dispute affected, but the whole community is made to suffer. This strategy, the child of the inventive genius of France (where, however, it has never been able to come to maturity owing to lack of adequate organisation), has now been adopted in Britain and to a greater or less extent in this Dominion. The motto adopted by its adherents is “An injuiry to one an injury to all.' It has been working under (lie most favourable conditions in Britain and has been able to reveal its inherent strength and also its far-reaching possiibilites, and these, as they have been exhibited, are, it must be. confessed, calculated to provoke anything but a sense of ease in the minds of the general body of the public. It has been seen that a million men acting together have the power of stopping the activities of the rest of the country, and bringing within the view of society the, prospect of dissolution into its primordial elements. It is idle to ignore or deny the important influence this grim -possibility lias bad in the consideration pf the workers’ claims. The (ears cheated, more than the justice of the case, have been the all-conspicuous feature of the situation. Bid potent, though the rattling of Ibis mny weapon of syndicalism in its scabbard may be in striking terror throughout a civilised community, tlie efficacy of it in actual operation is ■ -altogether another matter. 'Hie end ostensibly in view .is to win better industrial conditions for the workers who arc making war in common ; Tint the inevitable effect of a general strike, from the first days of its being, is tt> create a state of affairs obviously inimical to the achievement ..of that purpose, and the longer it continues the further do these prospects of success recede. her it is cicalas noonday that the chief result of a paralysis of industry will be to throw the country into a condition in which millions of pounds will he lost daily, and to cause trade, on which all wages depend, to sink to the lowest depth of depression. Our modern economic arrangements are not only very complicated; but they arc also very delicate. It needs but the slightest disturbance to put them out of gear, and when this happens our aggregations of wealth begin at once to shrivel up. Take the case of the British miners. We heard a great deal about what was called their war chests. Statistics were published showing that one union possessed so many hundreds of thousands of pounds, and another union so many hundreds of thousands of pounds more, and calculations were made on the strength of these moneys how long the men would be able to hold out in the struggle. It was found, however, that these sums represented not hard cash but investments. and the value of investments depends entirely on the conditions on which they are placed on the- market. The £2,000,000 which the Miners’ Unions had accumulated were invested chiefly in preference and debenture stocks of railways and other first-class concerns. Xow, it the whole industrial world is brought to a state of stagnation, and widespread panic exists in the country, how much would these stocks realise if thrown en bloc on the markets? They could only be sold at a terrible loss—’if at all. The same influences would be at work in every other financial and industrial sphere. Without confidence and security statistics of Weal'll are little belter than vows i.f figures. With a general

strike the pinch would be felt in. every household in the land, and when we emerged from the struggle the first thiing discovered would be that our resources were so crippled that the possilnlty of improved labour Conditions would be relegated to a distant and very dim future. Extremists are never tired of disclaiming with righteous warmth against war and all its horrors, 'but, judged by tin; way they talk, some of them would apparently produce the horrors of war in an accentuated form without a qualm. ‘‘Fight the wolves,” exclaims Mi’. Ben Tlllet ill H fiery manifesto, ‘‘not with sheep-like patience, but with vital and strategic weapons.” This sounds all very heroic, but in acutal practice what does it mean? It implies simply that the industry of the country is to be held up, and if that does not prove sufficient, it is to be smashed up. It was very sanely remarked by Mr Philip Snowden some weeks ago that it is well that the workers should have the fire of freedom in their souls, but it was well also that they should have the light of knowledge in their eyes. With such a light they would see that, bad though their conditons may be just now these would be a hundred times worse were the country reduced to anarchy and chaos. To think that one section of society can stuike at the other sections and not injure itself is the vainest of vain delusions. It is the story of the body and its members over again. So inter dependent are we in modem civilisation that it is impossible for anyone to break the laws of its ordered'being without also being himself broken. , Whoever makes the attempt finds himself at once caught in a net, and the longer and the harder he struggles the tighter the meshes become. The railway traffic is stopped; mines and -tones cease to work; ships are unaole to land their cargoes; the value of securities vanishes. The effect of all these things is simply to strangle the operations of those who bring°them about. The syndicalist’s chances of success are, in short, limited to his threats; the day he declares war On society lie comes face to face with economic forces which he can only combat to his complete undoing, and to the complete undoing also of the cause which he professes to espouse. He may pull down lh“ temple of civilisation, hut he cannot escape perishing in the ruins.