The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning. Saturday, December 22, 1888.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 238, 22 December 1888, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning.

Saturday, December 22, 1888.

Be just and fear not Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

TYBANNY*ON BOTH SIDES. As in all human institutions there is an unfortunate failing in the operation of the grand principle of trades unionism, that is when the laborers themselves get the upper hand they are inclined to act quite as tyrannically over those who have offended them as the grasping employer does when he has got his own way. It is lamentable that this should be so, because once power is obtained it should not be abused. The actions of the Seamen’s Union have lately been the reverse of politic, and certainly in one or two respects the Union has bordered on the tyrannical. The trouble between the Union and the Northern Steamship Company can well be remembered, and all supporters of the cause of labor were glad to learn that a reconciliation had been arrived at, but there is one point in connection with the affair that is discreditable to the Union and is a black spot on the Company concerned. After the strike had been settled, as was thought, it would have been expected the Union would have held to its terms and have been glad to get the men who supported the Company to join their rank; ; but they did the reverse. The men wanted to join the Union and made application accordingly, but were then blackballed, thus having a lifelong penalty imposed upon them for their indiscretion. Surely the Union is carrying it much too far when they hound men off the sea in this way, even though those men submit and offer to make themselves directly responsible to the officers of the Union ? The Company that would thus sacrifice those who stood firmly by it in its troubles is hardly worth wasting further words upon than denouncing its managers as being devoid of all good principle, but the Union is a body that should be above anything that would give grounds’ for any such accusations. A different class of Society, in Australia, has also acted most reprehensibly in connection with a recent strike. Instead of making its voice felt by temperate but firm language it has gone out of its way to openly proclaim that anyone taking employment in a certain office that has been placed on the black books of the Society will be avenged upon by members of the Society if they have to wait a life time to avail themselves of means of revenge. It is hard to imagine what proclamation could be more contemptible than this, or more calculated to avert the object sought to be achieved. We have very little hopes of the ultimate success of the principles of Unionism in the colonies if those who control the different societies continue to act with so little wisdom, and not only challenge capital, but menace labor itself.