LEGACY FROM CAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23009, 9 April 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

LEGACY FROM CAIN

STRIFE WITHOUT END Books about strikes are usually propaganda, written with an emphasis on the greed, guilt or criminal selfishness of the employer class. " The Strikers," by Goetze Jeter, does not seek specifically to blame 1 either side. It scarcely looks at the _ employers case, it shows that there is a lot of warm and good, if erring humanity in the hearts of the strikers. Mr. Jeter sets out to show that when Cain killed Abel he left a legacy of class strife which can never be healed. The sympathy which victors in one strike 'instinctively have for the losers is the weapon which a new champion immediately grasps as the kernel on which to build a fresh conflict. As long as their interests are divergent, brother will fight brother, race will light race, and there can never be If anvone can be blamed, Mr Jeter seems to blame the strike leader. Ihe flaw in the book is that Farland had behind him no federation of labour, no Government support, no reserve ol funds. He relied for success solely on the influence of his personality on the strikers, No one would be enough to start a strike in New Zealand with such flimsy backing, and it is unlikelv that methods in a progressive land like the United States would be verv different. . This fault apart, the struggle is effectively depicted by showing its effects on a number of different strikers. There is the first burst of loyalty and enthusiasm, the boredom of idleness, the, first doubts, the disagreement and quarrels between the strikers, culminating in the dramatic and over-drawn lvnching of their own leader, the cause of all the trouble. Finally, there is the swing of svmpathy toward the martyr and hero, and the first whisperings of a new struggle. "The Strikers," by - Goetze Jeter. (Methuen).