THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1911. A GREAT CHANGE AT HAND.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 23 November 1911, Page 4

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1911. A GREAT CHANGE AT HAND.

The darkest hour is that which pre- , cedes the ■ dawn,' and, generally, when things are at their worst they are sure to mend, or end in the dissolution of tne suffering organism, when it is a living body that is the scene or the subject of abnormal disturbance. This, in a sense, illustrates the supremacy of Nature's great law of kindness. Practically, the principle may be seen in operation in all the spheres of human activity. As it is here glanced at, the great Greek tragedians and Shakespeare show it at work in human nature itself, for even death, as seen through their dramas, is regenerative— lawlessness gives way to law, chaos tc order. Perhaps this consummating crisis has not yet been reached in thj world's industrial spheres^ but the evidence indicates that it cannot be far off. On the one hand, there is amongst people in general a steadily growing impatience of strikes as means of rectifying abuses and securing justice. It is becoming more clearly recognised as a ruling principle that it is by virtue of the collective existence and the collective authority of the people generally that men make money or a living , through business or labor, and that therefore neither trade nor labor can. be allowed to do anything prejudicial to the people collectively, with impunity. It has long been seen that strikes' are prejudicial in this : sense, but the reason why they are inexcusable, and should not be resorted to, is only now rising clearly up within the public consciousness. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear, and the ?nore it does so, the clearer and stronger becomes the conviction that strikes are not only injurious but without justification. Eveu:Mr Hanisay Macdonald has lately been pointing out that large numbers of men become unemployed, without sympathising in any way with a strike — such as shopkeepers, business men, and large sections of the working classes; and, he observes, "as the strike proceeds * and the. piiice of food reaches famine levels, and its scarcity becomes chronic, the ranks of the malcontents | will bo increased. . . . The striker, every day that passes, becomes in the eyesyof a#i increasing number of people^ ? hot the saviour but the enemy of society.; His assumption is that as the days go .society will become more helpless in his hands; the fact is that after the first . two or three days society will begin to organise itself against him, because society, as well as the individual, is moved by the will to live." As everybody knows, Mr Macdonald is one of the , champions of Labor, .but he and a con- ! stantly-increasing number of others Gee , that industrial striking is not only doing evil that good may come r^bf it, but that necessarily good does hot'eome, but only: 1 more evil. And yet there is this to say: ' That the recognition of the evil it leads Ito is also even now leading to the recognition of its inadmissibleness as an

engine of reform, and that the people who suffer by its use are strengthening in their determination to interdict it as an industrial weapon. Concurrently with this, however, there is growing an equally, if not more definite, determination on the part of society, communities, and nations that the worker shall receive justice—that is, such recompense for his labor as shall enable YAm and his to live under civilised conditions, and without uncertainty with respect to abundance of daily bread, or continuity of employment. In Christchurch the other day Mr J. A. Fiustick said that "the workers of the world were justified in expecting their en> ployers, or, as they were sometimes called, the captains of industry, to assist in securing even the lowest class. of conscientious workers at least a reasouabie measui-e of cpmfoi"t in return for pood, honest service. There should be very little, if any, eonsidei-ation given io the cjaims of 'azy or indolent nien who wtre looking for the material comforts of this life' without contributing their fair share of production, nor shoiild \ery much consideration be given to the idle rich, who used neither their hands nor their brains in helping towards the betterment of the race to which they belonged." In England, too, there is a I large body of opinion which »inds expression in the formula that "overy toiling man and woman is entitled to the opportunities and the --lecsncies of a happy human hw" ; and quite rocently a member of the Government declared that "it is the tiuty and the interest cf the State aat of society in pan-iril t ■ make sure that the conditions oi - laboi for persons employed in service which are absolutely vital shall not fall below the general economic and social standards of the country, and ais :> the duty of society and the State to provide machinery for the effective discussion and redress of grievances." With f|i"se two movements concurrently at work —opposition to strikes as economically ruinous and morally and politically indefensible, and a determination that the worker shall; receive that full measure of justice which is indispensable to the civilised welfare of him and ris faiyily as human beings—we are surely justified in, concluding that a great change is at hand, and that the ill-feeling and discord which now prevail in the lndus^ trial world will ere long give place to goodwill and 'harmony.