NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18192, 11 September 1922, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A STRIKE LAW AND ITS SEQUEL. Somo little time ago a law passed in Kansas for the prevention of strikes and the compulsory settlement of disputes by arbitration attracted attention throughout the United Statra and elsowhero. The law was put forward as iho last word in industrial legislation—as the Americans say, 100 per cent, efficient. It is being tested over the railway strike now in progress and is meeting some difficulties. Also there has been an amusing Boqnel. The Governor of Kansas, the father of the law, and the editor of a Kansas newspaper, were particularly close friends. They were together on the battle front in France and the journalist wrote a book about the martial adventures of the twain. But they have fallen out over the Administration of the industrial law and the Governor laid a charge against tho journalist, who had to find bondsmen to keep him out of gaol. It happened in this way. Tho law prohibits picketing. Various forms of picketing were tried and broken up by the State Government. Finally the strike leaders resorted to placards declaring, 'We are for the striking railwaymen 100 per cent" The Governor ruled that to be "picketing," but his friend the journalist did not agree with him, and to emphasise his point "of view he stuck a placard in his office window saying, 'We are for the striking railwaymen SO per cent." He explained that he said 50 per cent, because he believed the strikers' demands were just, but he was opposed to their methods. He declared his belief because he felt the right of free speech was involved. The Governor, bound by his previous ruling, held that his friend's placard was "picketing," and so the journalist stands charged with "entering into a conspiracy to picket the employees of the Santa Fe railroad shops at Emporia and thus impede transportation, an essential industry." The hearing of. the case has been postponed till October. BANKING IN BRITAIN. The past half-year has been one of the leanest periods in the modern history of British banking, says tho London Times. Tn 1921 the banks knew that they were passing through a severe economic crisis, but they were too close to the event itself to be able to measure at all accurately its dimensions. They now know it to have been the greatest crisis they have ever been called upon to face. . The past 18 months must take pride of place in the history of British banking achievement. While banking failures abroad were of almost weekly occurrence, British banks wore, never in any real difficulty in that period. Our bankers, therefore, are in the hapoy position of knowing that they have passed through the greatest storm of a 50 per cent, fall in prices with extraordinary success. Tho result not only confirms the wisdom of British banking practice, so often derided as ultracautious and unimaginative, but it also emphasises the great advantage which the policy of amalgamation hat> conferred upon the 'banking system. After the Napoleonic ' wars a sever© slump occurred, and in two years about 500 small banks, scattered all over the country, failed. Yet we havo passed through an infinitely more serious crisis in the past two years without one single casualty in the banking world, apart from one or two small concerns which were not banks in the accepted sense of tho word. In no small part that is due to the policy of consolidation which has built up institutions of great strength and efficiency. WORKERS' CONTROL IN ITALY. The grant of " workeru' control" in Italian factories, following on the occupation of the factories themselves by the workers in September, 1920, aroused great interest, and seemed to be an event charged with important consequences. But after December, 1920, the character and extent of the control became more doubtful, and when the point of putting it into practice was reached, there was intrinsically so little left, that the Socialists themselves were the first to cease thinking about it, says the Rome correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. There was no lack of goodwill on the part of tho Governinent. The workers, through the Confederation of Labour, asked for control, and Signor Giolitti obtained it for them In face of keen opposition from tho manufacturers. By this means he gave the severest blow to the Matimalist tendencies which, drunk with the Rusteiam example, had blindly sought to imitate their struggle in the field, by the occupation of the factories. In the early projects of the Confederation of Labour the control was to operate even to the extent of the purchase of raw materials, fixing sale prices, and the opposition to dumping. But after a few months only it became apparent that the extent of the control had been very much limited by tho Socialists themselves. It was maintained in questions of engaging and dismissing hands, discipline inside the factories, etc., but it lost almost all its original character of radical intervention in the management. A joint "commission of workers and owners, set up by Signor Bonomi, began to carry out an inquiry into the course of industry, arid it seemed that the results of this inquiry would contribute to the greater complete ness of the proposed law. But the proposal has remained stationary. It hae not been repealed, but it is almost forgotten. If any value is attached to it, it is chiefly a value as a principle. And tho workers, no less than the owners, would be happy enough to see conditions of Italian production improve, even under the old form of labour contract, putting off the practical experiment of control to better time*,