STRIKES AND MARKETS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14473, 13 September 1910, Page 4

STRIKES AND MARKETS.

The industrial unrest which threatens British shipbuilding yards with a suspension of industry, and may easily extend to other trades, has a bearing upon colonial prosperity little thought of by those who imagine that prosperity is solely due to local conditions. So interwoven are, the complex relations of trade and commerce throughout civilisation that the most alien disturbances react in quarters with which they have apparently no connection, as when the trouble in the Philippines increased the demand for Auckland fibre. The relations between New Zealand and the cities of the United Kingdom are incomparably closer. The dairymen of the Waikato send their butter to the tables of British workmen, and beside it are to be found the cheese of Taranaki and the mutton of Hawke's Bay and Canterbury. Any serious industrial disturbance at Home, depriving hundreds of thousands of workmen of good wages and reducing the incomes of other immense multitudes whose business or occupation is reduced or suspended, has an immediate effect upon the sales of those superior foods of which New Zealand is a leading purveyor. The exceedingly remunerative prices of all our produce have been due to British industrial prosperity, and if this is checked it is inevitable that prices must fall. Even temporary checks such as that inflicted by a great industrial struggle must affect our sales as they affect the purchasing power of our customers. We are, therefore, directly concerned in the boilermakers' ballot, which has resulted in the refusal of the men to endorse the agreement made by their executive with the employers. If the threatening suspension of industry lasts six months the distress occasioned in many now-comfortable homes will be exceedingly great and our own losses will appear slight by comparison with the enormous losses inflicted upon the United Kingdom itself. But that even at this distance injury results should assist in a public understanding, and should strengthen the knowledge that no rash and selfish action can be taken in any country without injuring those who are in no way responsible.