THE SHIPBUILDING STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9990, 29 November 1895, Page 4

THE SHIPBUILDING STRIKE.

A cable message from London, i/« Wednesday's paper, stated that owing to the shipbuilding strike, Germany had secured orders for the construction of ironclads intended for Great Britain. It is evident from this that there is' a, danger that one of the largest and most profitable trades in Great Britain, which lias virtually been her peculiar possession during the last half-century, will be lost. It seems that in 1893 reduction of wages in various brandies of the trade had been agreed upou, and in the present year an increase to the old rates, or nearly so, was demanded. The men working in Belfast first resolved to strike. The employers admit that there has been an improvement in trade, but they maintain that the contracts on which they are engaged have been taken at low rates, and that wages cannot be raised till these contracts are completed. It is very difficult to say which of , the parties should give way in tlijs dispute, and especially it is impossible to venture .111 opinion at this distance. But it is quite certain that a very great, danger is involved. There has, since the invention of steam navigation, been a complete change in naval construction, and Great Britain has had the benefit of that. Her position, and her stores of coal and iron, have given her almost a monopoly of the iron shipbuilding trade. The fleets of China and Japan have been built almost entirely in Great Britain. It is estimated that a strike in the shipbuilding trade means in the first place, the throwing out of work of 250,000 men, and there is no doubt that if long continued, it means the loss of the trade to Great Britain. If German shipbuilding yards obtain the contract for the construction of the new Japanese navy, they will the better fit themselves to take up the trade. And then it may come that English capitalists, building vessels for the colonial trade, may find it to be to their interest to go to Germany with their work. No one can tell the ultimate effects of a strike.