THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1922. A TRIUMPH OF UNREASON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18509, 21 March 1922, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1922. A TRIUMPH OF UNREASON.

When the Primi Minister of Australia convened an Economic Conference, at which employers and workers should be represented, in Sydney he did so in the faith that those who became associated together would b© guided by reason rather than by class bitterness. The conference promoted by him was designed to consider the industrial situation from the economic standpoint, and he hoped through the discussion to find means of coping with the threatened dislocation of industry. The conference was not a success. Several things contributed towards its failure. Undoubtedly the greatest of these was the lack of the scientific spirit. The majority of the delegates were strong partisans. Many of them were professional propagandists who are finding congenial employment in exploiting the alleged woes of Australian workers. Such men did not assemble at the conference table to find a solution for the unemployed difficulty or to inaugurate an era of peaceful progress. If strife were eliminated from industrialism their billets would be gone, and they would be forced to seek occupations calling perhaps for an exercise of their constructive faculties. Some of those present were exponents of the Moscow International, and, as such, were bound to encourage the revolutionary idea. Outside the conference room a general election campaign was raging and Labour candidates were, nightly, to their own satisfaction,, proving to the people how simple was the solution of the industrial problem, and were promising the payment of higher wages if they should be returned to power. In the circumstances ndthing short of a miracle could have saved the conference from failure. One brilliant suggestion occurred to a Labour delegate who declared in the midst of one of the many violent conflicts of opinion that they would get on much better “if they were half-shickered.” There are, however, other things than spirituous liquor which deprive men of cool judgment, and these had full rein at the conference table. After many days’ talk, both sides placed certain proposals before the conference. The employers asked for a minimum wage, the abolition of overlapping Arbitration Courts, no limitation of output, a 48hour week, piecework for appropriate industries, and profit-sharing. The employees stood for no wage reduction, a share in the control of industry, employment insurance, and the appointment of an industrial commission fcr certain specific purposes. In essence there appeared to be nothing insurmountable in either programme, and there was certainly nothing novel about them. The wage question is related to the condition of industry and the standard of life. In other countries adjustments of wages have proved necessary and have been effected by mutual arrangement. In Australia, however, the Labour Party stands pledged to a basic wage standard which Australian industry cannot at present bear. In the words of Mr Hughes “wo are putting less in the pot than we are taking out,” but it must have been obvious to him that. Labour at the conference table could not make an admission which would have dispelled the illusion which the Labour Party was at that very moment striving to create on the hustings. “We accept,” said the employers, “the principle of a minimum wage, ascertained on a proper and equitable basis, sufficient to maintain the workers in that standard of comfort which is necessary to the welfare- of the Australian community. We believe that such a standard of living is economically profitable, and that, normally, a high output is only to be obtained from well-paid and contented workers.” For their part, tKe workers’ delegates “dissented from the view that the standard of living in Australia can only he impaired by diminished production, believing that the employers, on reflection, will readily recognise,that many factors other than diminished production can, and do, materially impair the standard of living of the community.” Mr Garden, representing the Sydney Labour Council which has recently affiliated with the Moscow International, succeeded in making a continuance of the conference impossible. According to the Daily Mail, ho “reached a high pitch of emotion when he began to denounce the employers’ delegates.” He was called to order, and another Labour delegate endeavoured to calm the storm, stating they were prepared to go on. The employers were, however, convinced that a climax had been reached, and the proceedings terminated. Mr Hughes was disappointed, hut he refused to view the proceedings as a complete failure. “One thing is certain,” he said; “the Labour views as expressed are frankly those of the Third International.” Once more, it would appear, the voice of unreason, as expressed by the workers’ delegates, has injured the cause of the workers themselves.

it would be foolish to doubt that she will win through in spite of her false counsellors. There is now a way to prosperity and nationhood for Ireland along the paths of peace, and, in spite of all those who would sacrifice a generation in the worship of a chimerical ideal, it is to be anticipated that she will elect to work out her destiny as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations just as the other dominions are doing to-day. The Free State of Ireland enjoys a measure of freedom of nationality equal to that of the self-governing peoples of the Commonwealth in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, and she cannot reasonably expect more. Ample evidence exists that she would be satisfied if her adventurous spirits would call a truce to quarrelling and set about the constructive tasks involved in the business of governing a country. “The Treaty has the backing not only of the fighting leaders,” says a well-informed writer in Ireland, “but of practically all the administrators who have been doing the hardest spade-work on the constructive side of Sinn Fein.” The reports from reliable sources suggest that Mr Collins and Mr Griffith have behind them the solid support of the majority of the residents of the Free State, hut the torch of the incendiary—and incendiaries are always in a minority —is dangerous. For some years to come this minority will be a menace to the peace of Ireland, mainly because it will seek to poison the minds of Irishmen against Irishmen as well as against Englishmen. It is “through Irish blood” that Mr de Valera invites his followers to wade. It is over the dead bodies of their own brothers that they are to march at his behest. The prospect which Mr de Valera presents to Irishmen is in such marked contrast to the possibilities of free government that an outsider might hastily conclude that it would be scornfully dismissed from consideration. But an appeal to history shows that Irishmen are prone to quarrel about formulas of government. Even so powerful a leader as Charles Stewart Parnell experienced difficulty in uniting them long enough to win reforms, and he frequently found himself in conflict with unpractical sections of his supporters. The leaders of the Free State Government will have an experience similar to his. It will he for them to decide whether they can afford to allow a civil war propaganda to be preached. Men who would view with complacency the slaughter of a large part of this generation in the belief that, the next generation would enjoy everything which a minority now desires are unsafe and dangerous guides. Yet that is the class of men which Mr Collins and Mr Griffith must defeat if they wish to win Ireland for peace and progress. At present the Free State leaders appear to have success within sight, but it can readily be understood that, before finality is reached, many ugly obstacles may present themselves in their way. The boundaries question and the establishment of amicable relations with the Northern Parliament constitute knotty problems, but the real danger at the cross roads is that a considerable number of people in Ireland, inspired by feelings of the kind that animate a few Irish firebrands in the dominion, may elect to follow the will-o’-the-wisp of Republicanism at the heels of Mr de Valera, and in that case the trials of the country will be greater in the future than have been those of the past.