EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11629, 10 May 1912, Page 1

EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

It is wonderful to think how hard the right to strike is The Right to Strike, dying. United Labor professes not to want it, yet in its latest platform it especially reserved the strike right as a tiring to fall back on in the case of awards of the ArbitrationCourt displeasing to the Labor party. On the other side of the water—at Sydney—the Wharf Laborers' Union the other day dist : nctly stated its dislike of the> strike, bfit- when it came to signing a programme of policy, it expressly declared that it "must have the right to strike preserved "in case it might be wanted." Now the ordinary citizen wants to know the reason for tlr's extraordinary tenderness for that which after all is a brutal, barbarous, and most illogical custom; by this time, moreover, an anachronism in this free land. That reason is not far to seek. The Iron Moulders' "Union of Christchurch have revealed it. They have determined that if the Defence Act is not amended so as to abolish compulsory service by a certa-'li day—next Labor Day—they shall declare a striks. This Union then has determined to extend the strike from the industrial to the political department of affairs. The strike is according to these men to be a weapon of political domination. Any section, according to their example, of tlia people which has a desire, is not to argue with the other sections of the people for its adoption. That would be too mealy-mouthed a procedure for these advanced days. The desiring section is to force its will on the others at the point' of the bayonet. "Paralyse the wheels of industry" is the cry for anything that is wanted by any section of organised force from one end of this Dominion' to the other. It is true that, some Labor leaders and others have repudiated the action of these iron moulders. But the moulders represent a whole entfre union, not fragments. Moreover, even the President of the Trades and Labor Council, Mr Sullivan, though expressing his individual opinion against the resolution freely enough, refused to say Anything as to the possible attitude of the Council. It f!s, of course, evident that Mr Sullivan is prepared for anything on the part of the Council. It might surprise him much if the Council were to decree something after the example of the moulders of iron—and trade union policies—but it would surprise his friends more if he declined in such an event to carry out the policy of the Council. It is quite plain that a large section of Labor —no one can tell how large—is anxious to forge the strike into a political weapon of" dominance. For the ordinary citizen the one possible reply is to insist on tha total abolition of the right to strike. After all, this only shows that the thing which has become an anachronism must be formally abolished for fear of its misuse. ■ •