Manawatu Evening Standard. Circulation, 3,500 Copies Daily. MONDAY, MARCH 14, 1910. THE END OF THE COAL STRIKE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9165, Issue 9164, 14 March 1910, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. Circulation, 3,500 Copies Daily. MONDAY, MARCH 14, 1910. THE END OF THE COAL STRIKE.

The news that the coal strike has ended in New South Wales will be received throughout the Commonwealth with a feeling of relief. For over five montlis nine thousand men have been out of employment, and the output of the New South Wales mines has been reduced to a quarter of the normal supply. The experience has been a disastrous one for all concerned, and is an impressive object lesson as to the absolute uselessness f of the strike as a weapon in industrial warfare. New South Wales, as a State, has suffered commercially through the stoppage of industries, and she has been powerless to prevent a valuable export trade in coal drifting into other hands. Customers requiring coal have found that they can have their wants supplied from other sources without the risk of inconvenience through interrupted output, and the Victorian and Philippine trade has been practically lost. The possibility of the general welfare being thus affected by a body of men combining to restrain trade entitles a Government to enact stringent measures for the suppression of a strike, and this must be the justification for the drastic laws that are in operation in New South Wales. But the most instructive aspect of the coal strike ha 6 been the effect upon the strikers themselves. How much nearer have they got to the objects for which they ceased work? When all the negotiations are over it will probably be found that their gain is infinitesimal. On the other hand their loss is definite and heavy. Nine thousand men have lost five months' wages (estimated in our cables to-day at a million sterling), their families and dependents have suffered from the straitened circumstances into which they were thrown, trade and commerce have been impaired, while the strikers' trusted leaders have received terms of imprisonment that savour of harshness to New Zealanders, who are accustomed to see strikers treated with tender solicitude and agitators allowed to go 011 with their work unrestricted. Such results, it must be remembered, are typical of industrial strife in all countries. In eight out sof ten cases the strike miserably fails to attain its object and usually it inflicts disabilities out of all proportion to the actual value of the concessions involved. With such results before them it will be

surprising if this method of settling disputes did not become very unpopular in Australia, and it should not be without its lessons for unionists in New Zealand, where there is always a certain amount of restlessness in labour circles.