FALSE HOPES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15608, 11 November 1912, Page 4

FALSE HOPES.

It lias been reported that a number of persons, who, formerly engaged as miners in Waihi, are now employed in Auckland, being quite alive lo the futility of a further prolongation of the strike, contemplate asking the Federation of Labour to doelaro the struggle at Waihi at an end, or at least to explain satisfactorily what gain it cipects to follow from its continuance, If this request is urged with any vigour Mr \V6bb, Mr Scmplo, and their colleagues will bo confronted with a rather knotty problem if they rely upon their powers of explanation. All their sophistry must fail to impress any intelligent person that they have really a caso worth arguing. There will bo no other conelusion possible than that miners are more readily imposed upon than other people if in this caso they continue much longer to be deluded by the Federation's assurance that victory can still bo theirs. They have been buoyed up by hopes which they must realise to have been utterly vain. Tho Federation has held before their eyes for half a year a prospcct of success as alluring and hollow as i mir.igo of t.ho desert. Its official I havo used bravo words, but tho protest that tho Waihi strike can bo maintained any longer with any real hopo of gain to the strikers savours now merely of obstinacy and foolishness. It is not a question now of what is likely to happen at Waihi, but a question of what lias actually happened. The possibility that tho strikers may eventually win has becomo a very negligible consideration which is blotted out by the undeniable evidence that they havo already lost. Inspired by the Federation of Labour tho miners have held out for a long time on strike, but they have not controlled the situation. Slowly but surely the position lias changed around them. They aro on strike still, it is true, but the Waihi mine is not idle. So far, indeed, has it been found possiblo to resume operations that, according to a statement made by a responsible representative of the mine proprietors, other thirty miners will lie sufficient to occupy all tho places whioh it is desired to fdl in tho mino till after, at any rate, tho now year. This announcement should in itself bo suflicient to illustrate tho folly of any hopo on the part of tho strikers that they can still gain anything by persistcnoo in tactics which, apart from any question of their defensibility, havo been tried and found wanting. There is something decidedly liko selfishness in tho conduct of the Federation in thus going on taking weekly contributions, from hundreds of working men who can ill afford them, for the purpose of prolonging a strugglo in which it can no longer reasonably hopo lo gain anything and in which it has already suffered defeat. It is impossible not to admire the loyalty of tho members of those unions and organisations which havu provid<kl tho sinews of industrial war to tho tuno of nothing less than £24,500 for tho support of tho Waihi strikers, but it is time the miners themselves took a lead in asking why this levy is being thus stubbornly extended. Tho strike pay contributed in tho case of Waihi represents an aggregate amount of capital which would havo served to open a mine and work it for a considorablo time, and it is a thousand pities that it has all been thus practically frittered away. It is to be hoped, forlorn though the hope may yet be, that, having a little pressure brought to bear upon it from within its own ranks, the Federation of Lalwur will submit to tho inevitable and do tho most sensible thing that could bo recorded of it in connection with tho Waihi strike since its inception—namely, declare the strike officially at an end. Such a course would !>o more creditablo to it than to continue to take contributions to keep in progress what is now only tho semblanco and aftermath of a strike.