THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 11, 1903. THE VICTORIAN STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12267, 11 May 1903, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 11, 1903. THE VICTORIAN STRIKE.

If it had been the desire of the Victorian railway employees to teach the public the necessity of asserting and maintaining constitutional control over public railway services they could not have improved upon the extraordinary course they have adopted. As we all know, and as has been so repeatedly stated, the great and increasing numbers of Civil servants occupy a generally desirable position. Nobody supposes that they are altogether free from grievances or that they do not, as a class, give loyal and efficient service. But in Victoria, as in every other Australasian colony, they have official and unofficial opportunities and methods of bringing every grievance by which they conceive themselves injured before friendly tribunals, of which the last and the greatest is that supreme tribunal of public opinion before which Departments and Governments alike must bow. This is true of all Departmental employees, but more particularly true of the railwaymen. Whatever criticisms are made upon a railway department, the relations of the public towards the rank and file of the railway service are remarkably intimate and friendly. The driver on his engine, the fireman who stokes by his side, the pointsman who governs the track, the guard to whom everybody speaks, the stationmaster of authoritative mien, the lengthsman who keeps the permanent way, with others of that highly organised and specialised service which contributes so much to the uses and comforts of civilised centres and is so longingly anticipated by outlying districts, all these men are warmly accorded public respect and individual (esteem. They have the ear of the public, as their associations have the ear of the Government. We all see and know their work, and we all seek and desire to deal with them justly and generously for the manner in which we all are conscious that they do their duty. Our lives are in their hands, and among the noblest records of the age are the innumerable proofs they have given that their own lives and limbs are freely held as hostages for ours. This being the feeling between the public and the railwaymen, in Australia as much as in New Zealand, it is with an amazed regret that we see the Victorian railway associations suddenly take the public by the throat and endeavour to achieve a dubious purpose by sheer force of dire public necessity.

The assumption of the Victorian railway enginedrivers that they are the masters of the situation because it is not possible for the Society of which they are an integral part to do without them is a resort to barbaric argument utterly unjustified by the circumstances. Undoubtedly there is a limit to the obedience which the most patriotic citizen owes to the State, as there is a limit to the forbearance which Society may justly claim from its members. If the Victorian railwaymen had been beaten from pillar to post, if they had been pressed down to industrial conditions unworthy of a British colony and impossible for self-re-specting men to endure, if they had vainly asked the Government for redress, had vainly petitioned Parliament, had vainly appealed to the public, then they might set up a reasonable defence for this terrible blow struck suddenly at theii fellow citizens. But there is no such circumstance. Retrenchments have taken place, but the long years of drought have dealt harshly with Victorian finance and retrenchments are not the cause of trouble. The Irvine Government has irritated the Civil Service generally by its. scheme

for their special representation in Parliament, but it would be preposterous to assume that this could be the underlying cause for an industrial coup d'etat that inflicts serious , loss upon every Melbourne house- | hold and disorganises the internal ; carrying trade of the colony. It is | the sense of their power, the know- ; ledge of their importance, the con- ; Science in their organisation, the belief that the public would holly sym--1 pathise or feebly submit, which has unbalanced the judgment of the railwayman and led them to thoughtlessly and impetuously catch at the suggestion that they should " teach the Government a lesson." So--1 called " principle" is exaggerated by I the over-weening confidence of men who regard themselves as irreplacei able. The expected decision of the Victorian Parliament as to whether or not its employees may affiliate ; with the Melbourne Trades Hall is to be prejudiced by the spectacle of disorganised railways, of a helpless populace and of provisions at famine prices. It is stated in one of our Melbourne cablegrams that the power-house engineers are going on strike in order to tie up the tramway service and thus render Melbourne still more helpless. They have no more grievance than the railway enginedrivers have. It is but another instance of the deadly peril that exists wherever the coming and the going of the public depend upon irresponsible authority and unrestrained organisations.

That the Victorian railwaymen, as a body, will keep well within what they mistakenly regard as their constitutional rights is not to be questioned. But in times of industrial turmoil an anarchical scum always boils to the surface, inspired solely by the Craze to damage and to destroy, and those who lightly and' needlessly expose the State to such a danger have much to answer for. The conflict, as a conflict, must depend upon the patience and endurance of the public, upon the determination of the Government and upon the spirit of Parliament. It is a battle between two loyalties, between two authorities, between two organisations, where one only can be supreme. The lesser must give way to the greater, and the only question is: Which is the greater, Trades Hall or Parliament House ? In spite of the confidence of the railwaymen we do not think it possible for Government to surrender to such a midnight raid upon its functions. The very skill with which the raid was planned, the very determination and cohesion with which it was carried out, the very success which has attended it, only make it more imperative that the State should win. The enginedrivers are too masterful to be allowed to hold the helm of State as much in their hands as they hold the throttle of their engines. Those who are drilled and trained in labour organisations to yield unhesitating obedience to ■ committee orders, and to defend, stoutly in public what in private they may bitterly criticise and condemn— other words, to yield to the union that selfsacrifice which only the nation and the national Government should claim or receive— say and do much on behalf of the Melbourne Trades Hall and its railway work. But it is not possible for the great mass of the public to read the cablegrams from Melbourne and to be cognisant of the paralysis and distress, the loss and the suffering, which has fallen upon that great city by the act of the most trusted servants of the State, whose legitimate claims have always been so freely met, without arriving at the conviction that the question is well worth fighting out. For the Government to yield, for Parliament to waver, for the public to clamour for surrender, would be to leave in dangerous hands the keys of the public safety.