The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1897. END OF THE HAMBURG DOCK STRIKE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVII, Issue 11189, 10 February 1897, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1897. END OF THE HAMBURG DOCK STRIKE.

Apieb several months of stubborn industrial warfare, the thirteen thousand dockers of Hamburg have been decisively routed by the score or two of employers, and have surrendered at discretion. | Napoleon’s saying, that “ Providence fights on the side of the big battalions," ia not yet true in regard to contests between employer and employed, The demands of the workers in this case were most reasonable, and the failure of the effort to enforce them may be taken as proof that justice is not a determining factor in such struggles. The claim lodged by the dockers was for a minimum wage of eixpeE.ce an hour, as against one of fivepence three-farthings, which, they had been receiving. Certain conditions as to overtime were also demanded, When it is remembered that the Hamburg dockers did not average more than 200 days’ work in the year, and that their week’s wages for arduous labour was little over twenty shillings, it must be conceded that the strike did not lack justification. At the outset the Emperor of (Germany seemed inclined to favour the cause of the workers, hut latterly he exerted all his influence in the opposite direction. Towards the end of the year, the Kaiser, in conversation with the Burgomaster of Altoua, expressed his delight at the steady resistance offered by the employers to the demands of the strikers, and he developed in detail the idea of an employers’ coalition by which the men might be defeated. This extraordinary conduct on the part of the ruler of the country,, of course encouraged the employers in their resistance, and led them even to decline an appeal for arbitration. A proposal for arbitration was mad'e by the President of the Municipal Council of Hamburg, the Chairman of the Trades Court and . the Chief of Police, and provided that the dispute should he submitted to a court composed of the officials mentioned, one leading employe* and four representatives of . the strikers. The strikers at a mass meeting agreed to this proposal, but the Employers’ Association rejected it, on the ground, among others, that “ the strikers are failing to receive foreign aid, and are becoming weaker in 4 their position, while the work at the port is being performed by foreign dockers, who are continually arriving, and who are glad to work for the wages offered.” A patched-up compromise, the Association added, would only lead to further disputes; “for,” they said, “it in not a fight about wages, but is for supremacy.” It was perhaps an illadvised, though, well-meant, idea for the Engl sh trade union leaders to give their aid to the Hamburg dockers. It was responsible for a violent Anglophobist article in the Hamburger Hachrichten , which declared that “ the strike of the dock labourers here can bo traced to English instigation and has for its object to damage the competition of German and especially|o£ .Hamburg.”

J)he conviction that this was the ease would weigh with the employers, while the workers would be influenced by the alternative allegation that “ the German workmen are to serve as’a catspaw for the English labourers and to help them to obtain better terms from their own English employers.” Both ideas are, of course, absurdly wide of the mark, for the object was to bring the German workers up to'the English standard as regards conditions of labour, an 4 to place Hamburg on an equal footing with English ports in the competition for trade. The failure of the attempt will only intensify English antipathy to everything “ made in Germany,” including methods of conducting industrial warfare. The abortive endeavour to have the dispute referred to arbitration emphasises the need for the establishment in every country of a permanent tribunal to which labour questions can b 6 referred, and by which they would bh authoritatively settled without the process of “ strike ” or “ lock-out.”