THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1910. BRITISH TRADE DISPUTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14491, 4 October 1910, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1910. BRITISH TRADE DISPUTES.

In the United Kingdom 850,000 men are employed in coal mines, over 250,000 men in the iron and steel industries, and nearly 600,000 persons in the cotton factories. The output of these three great industries exceeds £400,000,000 annually, and many millions directly or indirectly depend upon them for a livelihood. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that great industrial disputes which threaten to paralyse these great industrial forces, and to spread distress and ruin far and wide, should occupy such a large share of British public attention. The South Wales colliers are already involved in a local dispute which has hitherto been restricted only by strenuous efforts, and may at any time break the bounds imposed upon it. In the cotton mills 150,000 operatives are idle. The engineering trades are deeply concerned in the muchdebated boilermakers' dispute, indications going to show that a general struggle is being staved off with great difficulty. The Autumn season is . not generally regarded as a threatening one, the Spring being more usually chosen for a marshalling of opposing industrial armies, but the British autumn of 1910 has been marked from its commencement

by a turbulent feeling of industrial unrest. In this connection, observation naturally turns to Germany, where the existing troubles in Berlin, due to engineering disputes, are similarly out of season. A review of the position suggests that Northern Europe is undergoing another of the spasmodic outbreaks which occur at irregular intervals and are associated, whatever the cause, with the widespread feeling of unrest peculiar to modern civilisation, rather than with any immediate incentive. In Great Britain, at any rate, wages are not being reduced, nor are unusual conditions of employment being pressed upon workmen by employers. There is nothing at issue in the engineering, in the cotton, or in the coalmining industries which might not be readily arranged were the rank and file of the employees in a conciliatory or reasonable humour. As it happens, the British union leaders appear to have worked hard to prevent an extension of the disturbed areas, and though this has not always been due to patriotic motives it at least indicates that they, fear the temper of their members, and have no wish to precipitate general hostilities at an inconvenient season. In a sense this makes the situation more foreboding than it might otherwise be. The public can understand and follow disputes over hours of labour, rates of wages, and other definite conditions, but is bewildered and confused by disputes which appear to have their source in a sullen and obstinate determination to quarrel unless employers abandon all pretence of managing industry in their own way.

It has been suggested that the unexpected discovery that trade union funds arc not legally available for use in political ways has aroused the anger of that great mass of British unionists which is always suspicious of law-makers and law-interpreters, and is constantly looking for a veiled attack. Whether this is wholly correct or not, there can be no doubt that to forfeit "rights" in a manner incomprehensible to the somewhat crude minds of those affected is always fraught with danger, and would be carefully avoided by all politic statesmen were they in command of the national jurisprudence. Fortunately for British law, its interpretation is not left to statesmen or politicians. If the Osborne judgment is felt to be retrospective, and as having taken from the British Labour organisations a power which they had exercised without question, and without any serious harm being inflicted upon anybody, for a full generation, it should bp remedied in the constitutional way by an Act of Parliament. But it hardly seems possible that from such a cause alone the unmistakable rancour which lies behind the present industrial situation should have sprung.' Outbreaks of industrial ill-feeling are unfortunately not uncommon, and teach us the great desirability of avoiding those irritations ' and incitements which bring latent antagonisms to the surface. The greatest incitement to class hatred which has lately been apparent in the United Kingdom was the unqualified appeal to that evil influence made during the last electoral campaign. When Cabinet Ministers and party leaders, men of influence and responsibility, have been assuring workers that they are being robbed and plundered, and that the Lloyd-George Budget is intended to recover for them some small part of their just dues, it is hardly necessary to look very far for an inciting cause to industrial discontent. For Socialistic agitators to preach this doctrine and to implore the masses to organise against the classes may do little harm, but for Cabinet Ministers and men of standing to imitate them is a very different matter. The British " cotton country" gave sweeping majorities to the Government candidates the Welsh mining country stood by Mr. Lloyd-George to an electorate; can we wonder, in view of the revolutionary utterances of the successful candidates and their rabid denunciations of aristocracies and plutocracies, that the humble voter has not readily understood that all their eloquence was so much electioneering word-spinning? Those who, for their own ends, deliberately and concertedly excite an industrial people to discontent may win a party victory, but they lay up for their country unhappiness and destruction.