THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1920. THE RAILWAY STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17457, 29 April 1920, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1920. THE RAILWAY STRIKE.

The whole railway service of the North Island was dislocated yesterdayand for what reason? This is the question which an unoffending public is asking, will continue to ask, and to which no reply has been vouchsafed. So far the locomotive men have pleaded no justification of their anti-social action and have, indeed, failed to advance even a plausible excuse for paralysing the transport system of half New Zealand. In common with other sections of railway employees, and indeed with the whole community, they feel the pinch of high prices, but if the claim of railway servants is for a wage of the same purchasing power as they enjoyed before the war— and up to the moment of the sectional strike this was their claimit is admitted by the public without any qualification whatsoever. Why then a strike? There were difficulties in arriving at a mutually acceptable test of effective wages, but they were no greater than arise almost daily in industrial disputes which involve no principle but only the framing of a workable formula. A settlement could and would have been reached had the locomotive -Tien been content to submit proof of the existence of real grievances. they have preferred to abandon the < onstitutional methods on which railwaymen have prided themselves, to introduce direct action in its least discriminating and most tyrannical form, and to victimise the public instead of appealing for its sympathetic interest. Many promising causes have been ruined by less serious errors. The industrial shore is strewn with wrecks which testify to the folly of such tactics, but if the locomotive men wish to put their action I in correct perspective they cannot do I better than remember the failure of I the lightning strike of railway workers in the United Kingdom a few months ago. i The news that the Amalgamated j Society of Railway Servants has joined the strike gives the situation a much more serious aspect than it bore yesterday. If there is to be industrial warfare the public will he the 3ufferer and the public will have to do the fightiog. The moment is therefore opportune for an appeal to both the immediate parties to the dispute. On the Government it is, unfortunately, necessary to urge candour, frankness "and a conciliatory attitude. Ministers cannot be held en-

.tirely free from responsibility. for the dissatisfaction which is rampant in a hitherto loyal service. .With the best of intentions they have taxed the patience of railwayraeri by avoidable delays in remedying legitimate grievances. The effect of this procrastination, to which Ministers and the Department have both contributed, has been cumulative. The Minister for Railways has deserved more consideration than the railway servants have shown him on this occasion. Oh the other hand the service would have been less disposed to hurry him but for the memory of tedious delays in previous negotiations. A reasonable course for Mr. Massey to pursue in existing circumstances would be to invite all sections of railwaymen to state their grievances fully, to remedy such as are obviously well-founded, and to submit the others to arbitration, either through the Labour Disputes Investigation Act or through a commission on the model the Prime Minister himself proposed. If this is done there should be no obstacle to a settlement. The whole of the matter in dispute is capable of reasonable adjustment 'and the sooner the effort is made the greater the possibility of success. On the railwaymen an even greater" responsibility rests than on the Cabinet. The public wishes them to have justice, but if the men wantonly involve the community in the loss- and suffering of a prolonged strike the community will be compelled to fight and to fight resolutely quite apart from the merits of the strikers' case. There is a disposition to assume that the railwaymen I hold a strategic advantage and can | dictate their own terms. No delusion could be more dangerous. Steps are being taken to organise emergency transport services and in this the tiovernmenfc can confidently appeal for the co-operation of all loyal citizens. The right of the community to exist is supreme and must be maintained at all hazards. The railwaymen may paralyse industry temporarily; they may conceivably produce the most serious industrial crisis in the history of New Zealand, but the more deeply they involve the ptiblic the more certain it is that the public must take side 3 against them. The community has now a great deal of sympathy with the railwaymen, but $e continuance of the strike will ■ rapidly alienate this sympathy, and, stage by stage, drive the public into an attitude of direct opposition and active hostility. The men's one hope of success is to retain the goodwill of the public. They are already gravely comprctaised by the action of the locomotive section. As a matter of tactics as well as equity the strike should be revoked and the trains should be run while negotiations are opened for a peaceable settlement. No other course is fair to the community. No other course can in the end prove advantageous to the railwaymen.