THE STRIKE IN AUSTRALIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20536, 11 October 1928, Page 6

THE STRIKE IN AUSTRALIA.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —The clash on the Australian waterfront exposes the sophistry of those who attempt to lead the working class into believing that its interests are identical with those of the capitalist class. Industrial peace can, and does, mean only one thing for the working class—the passive acceptance of a gradually decreasing standard of living until the coolie level is reached. Under the shadow of arrangements for an Australian Industrial Conference, the employers, encouraged by signs of disunity among the waterside workers, made an attack upon their working conditions. That this attack took the form of an arbitration award does not alter the fact, because the Arbitration Court is only intended to function in the interests of the employers. Protesting against this attack in the only possible way, by withholding their labour power, the waterside workers are immediately confronted with the State machine, Democracy, when the profits of the employers are at stake proves to be merely a thin covering, torn aside at any intensification of the struggle between capitalist and worker and revealing clearly the class struggle which up till then was partly obscured. We find in the present strike, as in all strikes, that the full powers of the State are brought to bear upon the strikers, to force them into accepting the terms of the employers. This, we are told by the capitalist press, is “ in the interests of the public” (whatever it may be), yet we never find the State using the police and military to force the employer to accept smaller profits “in the interests of the public." Always it is the worker who must make the sacrifice. The strike shows clearly that the class struggle in Australia is real and alive, yet in spite of this. Australian labour leaders are chasing a will-a’-the-wisp industrial peace.—l am, etc., A. F. Marshall. October 8. [The waterside workers in Australia are clearly not agreed among themselves that the award or the Arbitration Court involves any attack upon their working conditions, and the leaders of the political Labour Party in Australia have not hesitated to denounce the strike.— Ed. O.D.T.]