ARBITRATION OR STRIKES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15862, 27 February 1912, Page 5

ARBITRATION OR STRIKES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —It seems that my questions so upset Mr Howard that he quite forgot to reply to them, and went off on another tack altogether. Tho question, according to Mr Howard, is whether tho General Labourers’ Union should secede from the Arbitration Act. He claims that the Arbitration Act has not benefited the labourers, and says later on that he hopes to improve their condition by organisation. Now, if the Labourers’ Union had never had preference to Unionists, u r ould they be as woll off as they are to-day P Under the present law workers .are forced to join Hie Union, by Act of Parliament; under Mr Howard’s scheme the same coercion exists exercised bv the members of tho Union, because I have heard him state that the one big union, a la Howard, would force preference from the employers. Mr Howard claims that under his system of unionism the workers would llot meet as separate unions, but m departments, and solely by virtue of this fact would be able to obtain a better price for their labour power. Just imagine a meeting of, say, the department in which Mr Howard works, the building industry. All the plumbers, painters, plasterers, gasmen, carpenters, bricklayers, stonemasons, cartel's, timber-yard and sawmill employees would bo brought together in a heterogenous mass, and would try to formulate conditions of labour. The Tower of Babel would be nothing to it. It is useless for Mr Howard to say that he is not an advocate of strikes. He is one of those who are loudly declaring tliat if the labourers do not get 10s a day very soon they will go out on strike, and he is to be heard advocating the strike method any Sunday m the Square. Ho lias also failed to point out how the workers will gain anything by leaving the Arbitration Court, but seems to rely on the mere fact of them joining some organisation to achieve their aim. . , , .. All the foregoing is a reply to Mr Howard’s letter, and I would now point out that ho has not yet told mo why the Knight 3 of Labour, an exactly similar organisation to the one he proposes to form, absolutely failed to accomplish its purpose. It advocated the class struggle, nnd a{so one big union on the the one supported by Mr Howard. Why is it that such a union will succeed in Now Zealand when it failed nearly twenty years ago in tho United States of America?—l am, etc., "MAX S. lIAYES. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I read with interest Mr E. .T. Howard’s reply to the letter of Mr Hayes, in Friday’s issue. One phrase in Mr Howard’s effusion shows mo that ho it is who has to do some study, and

that is his idea, expressed in said letter, of the purpose •of the advocates of the ono big union. The mere federation of unions' under one secretary is not industrial unionism; displacing fifty-nine out of sixty secretaries of little craft unions and sending them out to join the unemployed, has got little, if anything, to do with new unionism. Mr Howard really ought to give the subject some study before rushing into print. It is up to every craft unionist to do so, for tho reason that among other thing 6 the new unionism ha:? for its object the abolition of craft unionism. Mr Howard writes: “The question was, would tho general labourers bo able to improve their condition by organisation.” That is still the question, and what sort of an organisation has Mr Howard in his mind’s-eye, should he and his fellows leave tho care of the Court? And what will tlie object or that organisation be? And how will tho struggle for that objective be carried out? These are a fow questions I put to craft unionists before they take steps to leave tho shelter of the law.—l am, etc., HANG POLITICAL ACTION.