APPEAL TO REASON

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8575, 11 November 1913, Page 6

APPEAL TO REASON

General relief, though probably little surprise, will bo felt by the public at the reception given to the Federation of Labour's call to all unionists to cease work and join in the strike that commenced with the Wellington waterside workers. It is clear that the general body of organised Labour has no desire to turn an already calamitous condition of strife into a cataclysm of far more appalling magnitude. There is, wo thoroughly realise, the possibility of the ranks of the strikers being swelled considerably within the next two or three days as the result of the Federation’s call. The hour of serious danger is not past. But the fact that those unions that have not yet refused to strike are taking time to consider the position before arriving at a momentous decision may certainly he taken as a. happy augury, and stimulates the belief that reason will prevail over passion. Even if the waterside workers’ strike could be morally supported and justified, which it assuredly cannot he; even if the sympathies of all the numerous and powerful forces of organised wageearners could be properly claimed for the strikers and enlisted in their behalf ; even if the employers were entirely in the wrong and the waterside labourers wholly in the right—even in such circumstances a general' strike could be nothing but a colossal error, a tactical mistake of the worst possible description, from the standpoint of the workers themselves. The policy of the general strike is a policy that courts failure and invites defeat. Whatever evils it might bo sought to remedy, whatever grievances (real or imaginary) it might be desired to redress, the course proposed certainly offers the least chances of success and the greatest prospect of ultimate failure and humiliation. The present trouble has reached a stage when its extension cannot be contemplated by reasonable, responsible, and sensible working men without the highest degree of alarm, and can only be sanctioned by those who allow their sympathies to eject reason from their minds and establish folly in its place. The time is overdue for a settlement, not an extension, of tlx© strife that is bo injuring the business of the city, the trade of the Dominion, and the wages fund upon which the hulk of the people depend. We hope and believe that the great body of unionists will recognise that too many workers are already embroiled in the trouble, and that those organisations that may meet and vote upon the important issue will use their influence in the direction of lessening the disastrous consequences of what has happened during the last throe weeks rather than hurl themselves into the vortex and render the situation more desperate and despairing than ever—especially for the working classes.