PROGRESS OF THIS WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12074, 27 February 1925, Page 6

PROGRESS OF THIS WAR

The seamen of Australia are going to declare the Commonwealth liners black the moment they are 6old. It is the same tactic as giving notice to pAible buyers of defects in the title of the property. The effect’ will be to at once depreciate the value of the ships. There are people who want to eliminate the Commonwealth line, because it is a formidable element of chaos in the paradise of shipping, according to the view of the Seamen’s Union. They will buy at scrap prices, of course, and take the ships to some other sphere of action. There will be nothing for the fiery seamen to declare black. There will also be nothing to use as a centre around which to rally universal labour in the war now smouldering, and to be flared up by the black declaration. Much better to have followed the line of the “Herald,” which' declares the failure of the Commonwealth line due to a conspiracy against~The good wages and conditions which the line could not keep up. As it is, the seamen have deprived the State of much good purchase-money, without any advantage to themselves. Ae for the cause for which they seem to have decreed perpetual war, they have deprived themselves of the weapon of direct action by eliminating the object of direct action. An appeal for a strike against nothing does not impress one as likely to succeed. But that is just the situation these illadvised seamen of Australia are likely to bring about.