The Star Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1913. THE DIFFICULTIES OF SETTLING THE STRIKE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 17 November 1913, Page 4

The Star Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1913. THE DIFFICULTIES OF SETTLING THE STRIKE.

It is an anomaly that while everyone whose opinion is worth quoting desires to see a settlement of the disastrous strike, no one has been able to suggest a practicable means of doing so. The parties to the strike, the Government, the Opposition, the great mass of people who had nothing to do with causing a strike or creating trouble, and whose only part now is to bear and suffer— all are in favor of a settlement, but from no source has come an acceptable suggestion. A correspondent of the Wellington Post stated recently that he had found a panacea. He set out the position thus: "The present calamitous dispute between the waterside workers and the shipping companies has nowbeen narrowed down to one issue, namely, what security must be given for its due observance if the agreement recently broken and at an end is reinstated, and the men again engaged under it? The companies are ready to revive this agreement, but insist that it should have the binding^ efficacy and legal results of an industrial agreement or of an award under the Arbitration Act. For this purpose the companies insist that the Waterside Workers' Union should be duly registered as an industrial .union under the Act. The men object to this on the ground that it is opposed to one of their most fundamental principles, but they express their willingness to have the agreement made legally binding." This, subject to some reservation to which reference will be made later, is not an unfair summary of the position, and the solution suggested is as follows: "In these circumstances, assuming each side is sincere in the attitude it takes up, there is an easy solution of the present deadlock. The Gordian knot could be cut by \ a Bill of one short clause, providing that the agreement in question shall be deemed to be an award under the Act, and shall have the legal consequences of and be enforceable in all respects as an award. This does not force the Waterside Workers' Union to register under the Act. The application of the Act would be limited, and, if necessary, could be expressly limited to giving to the agreement the binding obligations and legal effect of an award. Provision already exists in the Act for declaring that an industrial agreement shall be and have the force of an award. Surely this should satisfy both sides if their present professions are quite sincere, as we of course assume they are." But the reservation to which we have referred is to be found in the last sentence. Is there a sincere desire to work in the spirit of the present law? It seems as if the issue involves the maintenance of the principle of the Arbitration Act. No doubt at first the employers dreaded the Act,, not because' they did not want industrial peace,, but because they felt it was designed to shackle them and to help labor, and because they feared that while it would' impose monetary penalties on them it could not do so in respect of labor, and that anything but monetary penalties was simply impossible. To a great extent these fears have been justified, but time lessens many difficulties, and having adjusted their businesses to meet the conditions imposed by compulsion coated to represent conciliation, they have now for some time been anxious for the maintenance' of the arbitration system in order that they might at least be assured1 of the permanence of contracts. But the policy of the newer organisation of labor has been to discountenance this. Unions have been advised to get rid! of their corporate responsibility by cancelling registration; and the strike has become the weapon always held up in terrorem. If there were real readiness to work the Arbitration Act in spirit there'would be ,no serious difficulty about the letter of the law. Some few leaders like the Hon. Mr Barr remain loyal tb: the- principle of arbitration. In the memorandum he lately published he maintained the advantage of the system. He showed that the work done for ameliorating the lot of the employee could never have been done but for the arbitration principle. He added that the hew leaders "have set the prairie on fire, and now they are fighting for their own existence, and the homesteads that have Deen built throughout the land in the form.of flourishing unions, which would never have existedbut for tho Conciliation and Arbitration Act, are in danger of being swept off in the same conflagration. ... I see the danger to or^ ganisations that took many years of drudgery to build up—organisations: that never would have existed but forthe Act." But while some- of the leadK ers favor the arbitration principle, the bulk of the men have been educated! ta the opinion expressed by the Lyttelton men, who declared t'&at they hare struck, not merely in sympathy with their confreres in the-existing trouble, but to demonstrate '-their undisguised contempt; for the Arbitration Act." It is this attitude on tliie part of the workers which makes ai settlement so difficult. .-£& is an abandonment, a negation of the policy introduced by Mr Reeves as the sovereign remedy for industrial disputes. And if that policy has broken '' 1 down;" what is to take its place? If there is to be no basis of agreement, no loyalty to agreements once made* of ! what use is it to attempt a friendly settlement or to endeavor to force one by Act of Parliament, whether of one clause or of many? Another difficulty is that quite reasonable unionists fear that if the Federation is broken up unions will be attacked and beaten in detail. It is fear without good ground we believe. There are extremists in the employing class as well as ia the

unionists' ranks, but the general body of , public opinion would be against a . return to the days of pre-unionism. Unionism is a settled and accepted principle, and will stand if it is worked fairly. Still there is the feeling of fear, and it both creates sj-mpathy and prevents men breaking away from the Federation; and therefore operates as a difficulty in the way of settlement. Still another, and it is one that appears to be increasing, is the position of the men who are now at work. They cannot be overlooked; in any settlement they cannot be forgotten, much less abandoned. They have acquired rights which must be respected. But though the difficulties are serious, hope must still be entertained that there may, be settlement by consent rather than a settlement by exhaustion.