THE LABOURERS' STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15124, 15 October 1912, Page 6

THE LABOURERS' STRIKE.

The feeble demonstration made on Thursday last by the Federation of Labour, which thus attempted to exhibit its ability to paralyse the industrial organisation of the Dominion, has been followed by an equally feeble and ineffective strike called by the General Labourers' Union. The cause of yesterday's strike is to beiound in the preposterous claim of the Federation to the right to paralyse industry at any time and for any cause without any regard to agreements or to the rights and interests of the public. The prisoners now in Auckland gaol owing to their participation in disturbances at Waihi can walk out of gaol the moment they pledge themselves to keep the peace and to observe the law of the land. The Federation, endeavouring to obtain by false pretences the public sympathy that was not given to its unscrupulous attack upon the Waihi Enginedrivers' Union, devised a "24-hour strike" in support of its demand that its "martyrs" should be unconditionally liberated. The obvious purpose of this "24-hour strike" was to impress the Waihi miners with a sense of its activity on their behalf and to mobilise its forces in preparation for a future content. For it is a fundamental; article of the "syndicalist" creed that Labour should cease to work at the word of command, without regard to the injury done to fair employers or to industrious workmen, without consideration for the needs of the general public and with supreme contempt for all industrial agreements. This " 24-hour strike" was tantamount to a declaration of war upon peaceful industry, was an assertion of the intention of the Federation leaders to conduct the industrial affairs of the community according to their own sweet will and pleasure. It failed, of course. Foreign methods do not find favour with the great bulk of honest colonial workers who have an instinctive antagonism to disreputable and dishonourable tactics and are quite convinced that even an employer has a 1 right to fair treatment when he deals fairly with them, and are.intelligent enough to know that the strike is an obsolete and two-edged weapon. The local bodies of Auckland refused to re-engage those of their employees who broke their engagements by ceasing work on Thursday, and a strike of the General Labourers' Union was called for yesterday. The meagre response was a demonstration of the weakness of the Federation, movement and of the growing determination of thoughtful workers to repudiate the authority of an ill-advised and ill- \ managed organisation. Auckland and New Zealand have not yet seen the last of this exotic importation, but it is rapidly collapsing under the inevitable pressure of its own fallacious methods, which compel the antagonism of employers and estrange the sympathies of selfrespecting employees. The Federation has forced to the front the questions of who is to manage industrial operations and who is to represent the opinions and claims of fairminded and intelligent workers. Its officials are anxious to do both: they seek to deprive the employer of managerial authority and to deprive workmen of control over their own trade organisations and of the protection of the law. The result is not in doubt. Industrial operations could not be carried on if Federation of Labour officials interfered as it pleased them with any and every detail of management; the position of self-respecting workmen would be intolerable if the same irresponsible autocrats became the guides of their consciences and the tyrants of their working years.