TO STRIKE IS TO BLUNDER.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 16, 31 December 1910, Page 5

TO STRIKE IS TO BLUNDER.

The rumour of an impending strike among the coal miners on the West provides an excuse, if one is needed, for drawing attention to the influence they have on the political undoing of the Labour party. For an illustration one has only to turn to writings of an Australian correspondent. Commenting on the Adelaide strike from this aspect he says that the whole thing has been a grave blunder. It emphasises anew the employers’ contention that the workers will keep awards only when it suits them, and that consequently the whole structure of iri orc-sided. da-io ■ .-'ph'yrrs Lave to obey whether it. suits them or not. But the real injury to the Labour side comes in the violent shock that the circumstances of the strike have given to public opinion, which previously was favourable to the Labour Ministry and to the extension of Labour politics. There is always a definite or indefinite “public oninion” apart from the beliefs

or contentions of partisans. It is based really upon instinct —upon the notion of what is fair play beI tween man and man, and upon the i accumulated racial experience of j methods giving effect to that noI tion. In Australia this public opini ion or public instinct usually will I sanction anything in the form of a ! strike. The strike may be approved i or disapproved : but the public mind is apt to consider that in most cases i the strikers merely exercise their f reasonable freedom to leave employment. even if their demands are held unwarranted. But the inevitable corollary of the refusal to work is the permission to work. The public mind will rarely admit of real interference with so-called i"scabs” or "black-legs,” To per-

I mit that strikers, even strikers with ' | acknowledged grievances, should 'prohibit free public traffic—should prevent a non-union driver from ■ continuing upon his lawful errand, > should pull him out of his cart, and take the cart in triumph to the, unionist headquarters as a trophy; this is by fair-minded people regarded as monstrous, and is rightly so regarded. j Yet this is what the Adelaide' strikers did—not in one case, but as a regular matter of strike tactics. This is what the Labour Ministry, controlling the police, permitted them to do. As soon as these facts were assimilated, a revulsion of opinion fatal to the strikers set in. As soon as they were known and understood by the heads of the Federal Labour party, it was seen' clearly that no possible gain to the Adelaide strikers could compensate for the damage to the prestige of the Labour party in the public mind. It is said that advice—which ■' amounted to an imperative instruction—was sent at once to Premier Verran to end at once the, strikers’ interference with public' traffic. When mounted constables' patrolled the streets, the strike col- j lapsed at once. The strikers, realis- ■ ing that the wind was against them,! were glad to take the suggested way out of the difficulty. N T everthe-j less, in South Australia at least.; the harm has been done. There is! no longer confidence that the Lab-i our Ministry will give fair play to' all classes of the community. Pre-' mier Verran, in particular, brought' suddenly to the test of a crisis, has been weighed and found wanting, i It is realised that all his personal virtues failed to give him vision to: see the case clearly and strength to deal with it firmly. His political career is not likely long to survive the realisation, and his party has suffered a rebuff that will echo, perhaps fatally, in the ballot-boxes at the next election.