Manawatu Daily Times Defending a General Strike

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3345, 13 May 1926, Page 6

Manawatu Daily Times Defending a General Strike

In an article by Mr Thomas Bloodworth, the writer points out that the main criticism; in the New Zealand press is levelled at the fact that the general strike method was adopted instead of limiting the conflict to the coal-mining industry. After traversing the history of events leading up to the present crisis, Mr Bloodworth endeavours to justify the action of the Trades Union Congress in deciding on a general strike. “The miner has travelled that road before,” writes Mr Bloodworth, “he has no intention to be led along it again. The rest of the trade union movement, knowing full well that if they do not fight with the miner to-day, they will have to fight the same battle on their own behalf after the miner is beaten, have decided to fight all together, and for this decision there are good and sufficient reasons. . . . • “The New Zealand press suggests that if the issue had been confined to the miners alone, there would have been a good deal of sympathy with their case. The answer to that is that other industries have fought alone within recent times, on an equally good case, and have had to face all the usual capitalist hostility. Had the miners struck alone, it would not have been many days before thousands of workers in other trades would have been unemployed in consequence of the coal shortage. The result, therefore, to these workers, and eventually to the country, so far as inconvenience and loss are concerned, would soon have been the same as is the case now. “At other times,” continues the writer, “single industries have struck and the workers involved have received a measure of financial support from other workers and from unions in other industries. Now, owing to various causes, not many of the unions arc in a position to give financial assistance, and such funds as they had would be required to help their own unemployed in the case of a prolonged miners’ strike. “It is equally wrong to suggest, as some of the papers arc doing, that the present crisis is something more than an industrial strike. There is sufficient in the industrial position in Britain to explain all that has happened so far. No constitutional issue is involved, and no political issue, unless the continuance of the coal subsidy be regarded as such, as in a sense it undoubtedly is. The present is simply a strike to maintain present wages and conditions, not in the mining industry alone, but in all industries. It is a general strike because, while the miners were attacked, all other workers were threatened by that attack. “I think the strike will end as it began,” concludes the writer, “purely as an industrial matter. Britain has no need, and the workers of Britain have no desire, to settle constitutional or political issues by this means. Britain went through her period of revolution many years ago, and if ever another occurs there, it will be started, not by the workers when a capitalist Government is in power, but by the capitalists wher a Labour Government is in power.” Mr Bloodworth’s argument would no doubt carry greater weight were it not for some of the happenings since the struggle began. The attacks on the press, on food transports, on railways and other essential services, certainly give the strike a more sinister meaning than Air Bloodworth would like us to believe. In addressing the railwaymen at Hartlepool some time ago, Mr Thomas said:—“The suggested mass attack by all the unions must, by the very nature of things, be an attack upon the community as a whole.” A strike based upon such intentions surely surpasses the limits of an industrial conflict. It may be a fight to maintain present wages and conditions, but the intention evidently is co attain this objective at any price and sacrifice.