A BITTER FIGHT

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 12 February 1921, Page 7

A BITTER FIGHT

INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN AUSTRALIA.

EMPLOYERS DETERMINED TO DEFEAT BOLSHEVISM.

MOT ENEMIES OF LEGITIMATE

UNIONISM.

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYEIGHT (Received Feb. 12,,9 a.m.; SYDNEY, Feb. 12The Daily Telegraph, in a special article dealing with the industrial position, says: The general public fail's to realise there is now in progress one of bitterest industrial struggles in the Jhistory ot Austnlia. On the one side are the employers, -who are determined if industry is to live in this country that it shall beHree from the unreason-1 : ing .but deliberate obstruction which it I , -Jhas suffered from during recent years. On the other side are the dupes of the indusljial extremist, whose sinister arid •calculated purpose is to wreck the existing economic sjstem and put Bolshevism in its place. The .legitimate trade anion federations are placed in an un---enviable position- between these contending forces. , »

The Telegraph adds; The present position in the shipping strike means - that for the first time in Australia a 3»ody- of employers is making a frontal attack on industrial .methods, which the younger workers have learned from 'the Independent Workers of the WorW, Bolshevists and other fanatics, and which they are seeking to put into effect. A similar fight *is rapidly develop-

ing between the coal miners and the -coal owners. ~ The newspaper publishes a list, of fifty strikes in five weeks which oc--curred on the northern* coalfields, and the position is similar in the southern -coalfields. Mine owners declare - that they will be compelled to take' the line of action which they are unwilling to take unless-there is soon some improvement in the position. The employers -claim that the fight is not being put up against unionism. The modern em * ployer is willing to assist craft unions '" in every possible way if they' can secure industrial peace. The .whole ten<l•ency is to give the workers as big an interest in their work as possible. The fight is against Bolshevism, and is being made as much on behalf of the • community, generally as for the employers, and they look to the public generally and a solid body of workers for assistance in the fight.