Grey River Argus and Blackball News TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1922. INDUSTRIAL CONSCRIPTION.

Grey River Argus, 18 July 1922, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blackball News

TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1922. INDUSTRIAL CONSCRIPTION.

Delivered every meaning In Grc >uth K Hokitika, Dobson. Wallsend, Taylo. jillc, Ngahcre. Blackball, N.elson Creek. Brunner. Te Kingha Kutomauu. Poesi-a, Inchbonnie, Patara, Ruru, Kannala, Kotukv Moana, Aratika, Bunanga. Dunollie, Cobden. Baxter’s, Kokiri, Ahaura, Ikaniatua, Stulwatei, Waiuta, Reef ton, Ross. Ruatapua. Manama. Hari Han, Waiho Gorge, Weheka, Rewanui, Otira, Iningahua Junction, Westport, Wai man gar aa, Denniston. Granity, Millerton. Ngakawau. Hector, Cape Foulwind, and Karam**

Those who during the war questioned the judgment of anti-conscription-ists who declared industrial to be the. logical conclusion of military conscription—in other words, foresaw a further step in conscription towards th© servile state —must view the latest developments in the United States in the light of something new and unexpoct. cd. The President, who is the veritable spokesman for Big Capital, has intimated tho preparedness of his administration to conscript workers to carry on the mines and the railways. Who said Soviet tyranny? Where is the so-called democracy of the American constitution to-day? So long as the employers of the many hundreds of thousands of miners and railwaymen now on strike were the direct actionists in wage cutting, sacking, and union-smashing, the complacent capitalist Government neither said nor did anything. There was “a free field and no favour” for the employers, when it seemed, that economic solidarity gave the capitalists the prospect of certain victory. The miners have struck before, and been threatened by Wilson. Now two of the fundamental groups of workers happen to be united in a struggle against wage slaughtering, and the uso of the Federal and State forces of soldiery is planned to compel their submission. Admittedly, it is a serious prospect for such a huge population as America when two fundamental industries are paralysed. But what of the prospect for the workers, whose great part in the country’s economy

the crisis well illustrates. To make their spoliation the same thing as the State’s welfare is the aim of the ad-

ministration and those who back it, the coal barons and railway magnates. I The crisis recalls the action of a French Government some years ago in, breaking a strike by the political expedient of conscripting labour for the railways. Massed capital is never thus brought to heel. A general offensive on wages is not held up as the national evil it is. Nothing short of a great moral cause would unite workers by the million in strikes of such huge dimensions as those now in progress in the United State. Even the lethargic and reactionary Federation of Labour is disposed to protest against using the military against the strikers. Inefficient scabs have proved a menace instead of a successful strike-breaking resort, and it is sought to lay the blame on the strikers when tho employers are refusing even to confer with the workers. These strikes denote the increasing solidarity of Labour in U.S.A. It will not take tho strikes long to put the coal owners in a hole, because other countries will grab their foreign markets. Likewise, the railway stoppage will induce the populace to bring pressure for a speedy settlement. If the strikers ean hold out, it is safe to say the employers will have to change their tune, and content themselves with paying much better wages than they hoped to foist on their hands with the aid of a record margin of

unemployed. If industrial conscription is put into force, it may cut more ways than one. If a capitalist State has no compunction in using force for industrial ends, what objection morally speaking, can be raised against a retaliation in kind? The position is a critical one, and must have a lasting moral effect on American workers. They now see the nature of the present system nakedly revealed, and will know in future just where they stand.