WAR AND STRIKE

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 21 December 1917, Page 3

WAR AND STRIKE

PSYCHOLOGY OF SWELLED HEAD- " There is a certain analogy between the breaking oat of war and the position of the unions in this strike." said Air Justice Heydon in the Industrial Court u» Sydney last week, in refusing the application of the Tramway Employees' Union for registration. "Both of them," he continued, "were influenced by certain psychological conditions. In the one case a. very powerful nation had got into a state which might be expressed by the term ' swelled head,' and I thiiik it was verv much the same state of tilings with the" unions throughout Australia, particularly in New South Wales, which influenced the strike. " One of the causes of this state of things was that the unions had known that they could flout this Court with perfect impunity. Looking at all the circumstances, *it was" apparent that the unionists of New South Wales considered that they had an absolute right to get their own way in everything, and they were highly offended when the card system was introduced. Such a small cause could never have produced such a convulsion as that strike if there had not been some widespread feeling at the time among the unionists. The only way to prevent the recurrence of such a thing is to teach .the lesson that it does not pay. At the time the strike took place the opinion was that it did pay. Some 12 months before one of the wickedest tilings in Australia —the coal strike —was an absolute success, after the men had actually taken Australia by the throat. " Unfortunately in this strike/' said the Jndge in conclusion, " the great number of unionists, instead of being filled with indignation 'at the disloyalty that had been exhibited, and saying: 'We will • never be guilty of such a thing,' had done exactly the same, and had practically said : ' It is war time now j we have only Jo abijp nowj and §«* *li *?e want.'"