THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1925. THE SEAMEN'S STRIKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19156, 23 October 1925, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1925. THE SEAMEN'S STRIKE.

So far as this port is concerned, the shipping strike has reached its last phase. With one exception, every ship affected has been despatched, ana that one, bound for Nauru Island, is likely to be got away without difficulty. In some instances the strikers themselves have repentantly lent a hand to take the ships out. Volunteer labour, offering freely, has accomplished the rest. It is certain that, without the aid of any of the disaffected seamen, the ships could have set out. As far as it goes, this is satisfactory. But the strike's collapse, welcome as it is, does not put things back where they were before it was extended to this port. The evil that strikes do lives after them. The injury wrought *can be neither undone nor forgotten. Our export trade, upon which the community's well-being vitally depends, has been seriouisly hampered. It is impossible to catch up with the delay. Our dairy produce will reach the London market too late to profit by the high prices recently ruling, for supplies from the Continent will be in advantageous competition. Our export of early lamb has been similarly hindered. Storage charges at this end have added to costs on both kinds of product. Our wool sales are likely to be sluggish because of dislocated and diminished shipping. How much loss is involved cannot be precisely stated at present; but the strike has, without doubt, robbed our farmers of hundreds of thousands of pounds, lessened the volume of savings, and diminished the Dominion's revenue. Every section of the community will suffer, the injury affecting first and worst the small farmer and the manual worker. The only consolation is that it might have been even more serious. Yet this is but cold comfort in the light of the fact that the hold-up was a wholly unwarranted interference with our oceanborne trade.

As it passes into its inglorious place in our annals, the strike is seen to be as futile and stupid an occurrence as ever was brought about. It had its origin elsewhere. It was occasioned by seamen oh British articles. Not all such seamen, it should be remembered. A minority, disloyal to the agreement made on their behalf by their accredited representatives on the National Maritime Board, revolted and broke their contracts of service. They were discountenanced by their fellows in the same occupation, working under the same agreement. Workers in kindred occupations also declined to join their revolt. hollowing the lead of mischief-making agitators, the strikers took the law into their own hands, caring naught that they were mutinying against their authoritative leaders, bringing collective bargaining into disrepute, violating trade-union principles, and inflicting serious loss upon fellow - workers in many industries. The importation of their self-made quaiiel to ports overseas, where there was no possibility of getting redress foi any grievance suffered under British articles, was as foolish as it was unwarranted. Their methods in these ports have been characterised by lawlessness and irresponsibility. Whatever sympathy they might have hoped to get here has been forfeited by their tactics : to their initial breach of honour they have added ruffianly violence and vulgar bravado. All they have accomplished here, aside from whatever satisfaction they may find in injury inflicted upon people wholly unconnected'with their quarrel, is worthless. They have brought trouble upon themselves and ridicule upon their cause.

Their persistence in this wantonness has been so manifestly against their own interests that wonder is compelled as to what has actuated their folly. That wonder is increased by the knowledge that they have acted in contravention of the counsel of their accredited leaders and the example of a majority of their fellow-seamen. They are under suspicion of obedience to an alien movement, and there is evidence, even in overseas ports, that the accusation made against them in Britain is true —they are the more or less willing agents of a Communist plot to damage the Empire's ocean-borne trade. No other sufficient explanation is forthcoming. The crude attempts to explain the strike as a protest by British seamen against an inadequate wage fail utterly in view of the acceptance of that rate, for the time being at any rate, by a majority of Britain's merchant seamen. The rate may be inadequate, but the inadequacy does not account for the strike, nor for the way in which it has been conducted. The Communist explanation fits the facts, and it is the only one that does. .Nor can Labour leaders here, more particularly Labour politicians, be exculpated from complicity in that alien influencing of the strikers. By their encouraging public utterances,

speciously phrased, they have shown where they stand. Their attitude has been manifestly partisan. Mr. Holland, as Leader of the Labour Party, reiterates his ridiculous complaint that the Prime Minister did not ask him and his henchmen to mediate. No one outside the Labour Party, and not all inside it, take that complaint seriously. But there has been absolutely nothing to prevent Mr. Holland from using his persuasive powers to induce the men to observe the terms of their legal contracts and otherwise to honour the law. He has not tried. Only one conclusion can be drawn from his inaction, taken together with his platform avoidance of the real issue and his attempts to make political capital out of Ices vital facts.

THE ISSUE DEFINED.

The statement issued by the Prime Minister yesterday and his observations in elaboration of it reported to-day will serve to remove the confusion which many candidates have been zealously fostering. It is not only in the country electorates that Nationalists are striving to wheedle supporters of the Government by the specious argument that, being admirers of Mr. Coates and advocates of fusion, they may be accepted as fitting recipients of Reform votes. Indeed, the most striking feature of the campaigning by Nationalists is their anxiety to be identified with Mr. Coates, and their indifference to their own party's leader. Their attitude is clearly wanting in sincerity. It is justified only by the plea that while they regard Mr. Coates as the destined leader of a national party, they reserve the right to determine the constitution of his party by confining it to the most capable men in Parliament. Mr. Coates has been very patient with this blatant assertion of superiority. He simply dismisses it by saying that if he is to lead the Government, he wants whole-hearted support. The plain meaning of that statement is that he wants the support of a party whose members are not only loyal to himself but loyal to one another. That measure of service is not offered by the. Fusion-Nationalists They profess to pledge themselves to Mr. Coates but refuse to wear his party's colours. The distinction should be carefully observedby all who wish Mr. Coates to continue to lead the Government, and they will then have no hesitation in rejecting the spurious claims of Nationalists and giving their votes to candidates unreservedly pledged to support the Government. There should be no difficulty in judging the Country Party. It comprises a clique ot half a dozen men, obsessed with a fad, who are committed to a piratical'policy. It professes independence, and has undertaken to vote for or against the Government according to its treatment of farmers' interests. Translated into plain language, this means that the Country Party aspires to dictate to the Government. One of its demands is that the Government should give it £5,000,000 to start an agricultural bank, and that would be part of the price the Government would be asked to pay for the support of any Country member that might be returned. Tactics of that sort ma\ be reconcilable with the principles of the party, but they do not accord with the popular conception of democratic government, and it may be presumed that electors ot all shades of opinion will agree that it would be grossly unfair to any Government —whether Reform or Labour—to risk its subjection to such unprincipled domination by giving a single vote to the Country Party. _____