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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8359, 12 September 1890, Page 4

The New Zealand striker wants a grievance. He is very hard up when pressed to give a reason for the sulkyboy attitude he has iissumed. Someone else in some other country has some unredressed wrong, and so young New Zealand has set up his long-suffering back. He rushed home tumultuously from his work, and told the wife of his bosom that his wrongs were legion; but when that practical dame instituted inquiries, she discovered a striking analogy between the tale of her spouse and that of the boy who, on his way home, encountered a thousand cats, which, under a little cross-ques-tioning, dwindled down into " our cat and another." At any rate, the strike is vti fait (tccoinpli. The rapidity with which it lias developed almost takes our breath away. The loaders of the movement smile with gloomy satisfaction at the phantom they have conjured up, much in the same way, we suppose, as a man smiles when informed he has become the father of twins. The carters, lumpers, and coal-heavers try to imagine they are gentlemen at large. It is so funny to see a. bank clerk unloading coals, and there is a world of humour in an in-' suranee agent tugging at a treacle barrel, regardless of the damage, dune to his Sunday pants. So the striker gets what satisfaction he can out of the situation. It is the respectable thing at present to be idle. True, it gets a little monotonous to stand around with hands plunged into one's pockets, but then one must sacrifice something for a great principle. The man who is not loating is out of the running. We call him a blackleg or any other pretty fancy name we can invent. The hoodlum who never does a day's work, feels quite respectable now that he is on equal terms with the strikers. He is ready when required to help on the good cause by boo-hooing, or by spoiling a " beak's" uniform, or Hinging a few stones at society generally. Such a state of things in a colony that has hardly finished chanting its Jubilee pteans is, to say the least, phenomenal. If you walk down Queen-street Wharf and ask half-a-dozen of the most intelligent men among - the crowd," Why are you on strike , '" the answer invariably is. " Oil, because the Unions called us out." The men make no attempt to justify the action. Other people had a grievance ; they must have one too. They remind one of Macaulay's description of the riots in England two hundred years ago because of the difficulty experienced in exchanging the old clipped money for the new milled coin-: I age. The mercantile classes had a real I grievance. The onlookers thought they ought to have one too, so they besieged j the house of a gentleman and clamor- [ ously demanded to have their clipped • money changed. He consented, and after considerable difficulty they were able to muster among them, half-a-crown ! A social reformer might say such a state of things showed a grievance, but certainly not the grievances so clamorously put forward. The leaders of the strike have so far failed to give any reasons for their action that would weigh with intelligent and impartial men. If such reasons exist, there ought to be no difficulty in clearly and concisely stating them.. A man who induces hundreds of other men to throw up their work, and does his best to paralyse trade and check industrial pursuits, assumes a very grave responsibility. We regard strikes in general as a clumsy and reprehensible method of settling disputes between employers and employed. The waste, misery, and bitterness engendered between classes are so widespread and disastrous in their results', that a strike should never be resorted to till all other attempts at settlement have failed. It is one thing to talk airily about shutting dswn factories, and to send light-hearted telegrams about cutting off coal supplies, but it is quite another thing to justify sjch actions at the bar of public opinion. Where any class is subjected to a real grievance, the spirit of freeborn colonials—that spirit that always swells and rises against injustice—will sooner or later rise in their favour. But the judicial mind of colonial public opinion must be assured that the grieI vance is a substantial one. Anything j short of this fails to evoke a favourable response. The introduction of a foreign element into the relations that exist in our colony between employers and employed is one of the most serious aspects of the present crisis. Conscious ' that we have no real grievance of our own, strike leaders and stump orators i ring the changes on the relations of i capital and labour in the United States or Australia. In our correspondence columns Mr. W. L. Hees justly points out that if our labouring classes are to go on the rampage at a word from Melbourne or Chicago, and on a quarrel with which we as a people have nothing to do, we have no certainty that at any time our trade may not be paralysed, and all classes of colonists involved in hopeless disaster. Lachrymose descriptions of Manchester cotton kings, who made fortunes by winding 240 yards of cotton on the reel instead of the standard 300, may be very affecting to old ladies, but such plati- , tudes have no more direct bearing on ! the causes or issues of strike than the gambols of a school of porpoises. Nothing is clearer than the fact that if we once admit the principle of foreign interference we, as colonists, place ouri selves in the hands of a federation, in which, from the circumstances of the case, we can have little or no representation. The attempt to justify the present strike as a class dispute is equally without In European countries the vested interests of the wealthy classes have;'had much to do with social upheavals. Though not always advanced as a primary cause, they have influenced every struggle of the British labouring classes from Wat Tyler's insurrection to the London ' dock strikes. In thq greatest commer[cial mart of the world the purple

and fine linen of Dives bring out into bolder relief the rags oc Lazarus J the glittering carriage of the peer of the realm is a perpetual challenge to the resentment of the Socialist foot-passen-ger. But here we have no such eh&rplydefined class distinctions. Our aristocracy, if such n term is admissable at all, is an aristocracy of trade and industry. Its ranks are open to every man and woman who will practise the virtues of thrift and economy. We may smile sometimes at successful colonists who, after breathingfora time the atmosphere of English society, affect on their return coats of arms and heraldic distinctions. These are the little weaknesses to which human nature is ever prone. But, as a rule, our pioneer colonists dwell with pride on the fact that, as a body, they sprang from the ranks of working men. IJnder the favourable conditions of colonial life, the yard-man becomes a timber merchant, and the keeper of a small " tally shop" develops into an important member of the Chamber of Commerce. The same rule applies to the members of the learned professions, who, in older countries form a distinct class. Many of our religious teachers, in lieu of College training, have gained such literary knowledge as they possess while actively engaged in the duties of a colonial pastorate. The young colonials, who qualify themselves "for the medical profession in London or Edinburgh, are in many cases the sons of men who, in early life, regarded penmanship as a sort of cabalistic mystery. Many of ov.r leading barristers, literary men, and statesmen are connected by the closest ties of blood with carpenters, tailors, and labouring men. In our University classes, the son of the small shopkeeper or market gardener, mingles on equal terms with his fellow undergraduates, while our system of national education is based on the principle of affording each boy and girl in the community an equal chance of education and advancement. Legislation and public opinion alike find expression in the maxim, " A fair field and no favour." If the motto "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," so proudly emblazoned on the temples and palaces of France, is not expressive of our social system, the fault can certainly not be charged to oppressive capitalists or unfair legislative enactments.

We believe the great majority among the strikers admit that so far as relations between employer and employed are concerned, they had nothing to complain of. They do not feel that they have the moral support which springs from the conviction of suffering in a good cause. Wβ are far from saying that questions respecting wages and hours of work do not sometimes justify strong measures ; but the present strike springs from no such cause, nor aims at any such issues. It is the mere tail end of a fight with which we have no immediate concern. Our leading strike agitators only lose sympathy by any forced comparisons between the social condition of the New Zealand workman and that of the mass of toilers in the mother country. To draw a parallel, as one crater orator did, between the condition of the coal strikers in Northumberland and Durham in 1844, when for nearly five months 40,000 miners were homeless and starving, and our well-fed, comfortably-housed, and highly-paid working men, is about as wise as to compare the ragged child in the street, shivering with cold and hunger, to the pampered youngster who looks out of the parlour window and cries because he cannot have the moon.