Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8375, 1 October 1890, Page 4

One of the most curious departments in connection with the strike is its finance. The Maritime Council at Dunedin, winch seems to be a government having for absolute monarch Mr. J. A. Millar, calls out certain trades. It is soon found that it has been a mistake to call out so many trades, and therefore some are allowed to go back, in order that they may contribute to the strike fund. But every trade affiliated with the Maritime' Council or with the Trades and Labour Council has made upon it "a levy," amounting, we understand, to about 10 per cent, of a man's earnings. The seamen, lumpers, and miners who have left their work, and who might if they chose obtain employment at other occupations, are maintained in idleness upon these levies,aidedby the money out of the wretched pittance of the London dockers. The unionists now in work in Auckland are contributing _ to strike pay an amount which, if laid past in the Savings Bank for a period of years, would provide amply for a mau's old age. or would at no distant period suffice to set him up as an independent settler. New Zealand is finding out that it can get along very well without those men, who thought that if they struck they would force everyone they chose down upon their knees. There is not the slightest chance now that their terms will be yielded to, and that they will be allowed to walk back into their situations. It would seem as if they would be allowed the glorious privilege of drawing "strike pay" for the rest of their natural lives, and, as a consequence, that the other men would continue, for the term of their natural lives, to pinch and save and to sacrifice making any provision for old age, in order to give the money to the men on strike. Was there ever slavery or tyranny like this? It is the proud boast of these days that every man lias equal political rights, but a large part of the working population are now deprived of all liberty. They have sold 'themselves to an oligarchy whom they do not know. Is the cause a just one 1 Take an instance. The miners at Huntly have struck, not because they have to submit to injustice, but because they think_ that the owners of the mines might sell the coal to the Union Company. This has the effect, to begin with, of raising the price of coal, so that when any working man, after paying his strike levy, looks to see if he has sufficient to buy a ton of coal, he finds that he has to pay another strike levy. We put it to these men whether the reason of the men for striking at Huntly is a sufficient one, or rather —for the men were not consulted—whether Mr. J. A. Millar had any right to call them out. If they gained the day, it would amount to this, that the men would have the power to dictate who the masters should sell their coals to. More than this, it would affirm that the men at any time would have the right to close up the mine if they thought that the coals might find their way indirectly to persons whom Mr. J. A. Millar objected to. Now, we know as a positive fact that very many of tha working men who are week by week paying their strike levy, consider that the whole tiling is a mistake, and that such a case as this of the coal mines is simply out of all reason. And yet they impoverish themselves to maintain it. No man is asked to pronounce upon the point of whether any particular set of men should be called out or not. He is simply told he must put his hand in his pocket and keep them. And the men who pay have never been asked to give an opinion on the justice or injustice of the strike, or whether the men have or have not a good case. Verily, if the working men of this age are emancipated from chains of political tyranny, they have sold themselves to a tyranny ten times worse.