THE VICTORIAN RAILWAY STRIKE.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XIII, Issue 1000, 15 May 1903, Page 2

THE VICTORIAN RAILWAY STRIKE.

ilf ever the wisdom of the passing jby the New Zealand Legislature of the Industrial and -Conciliation Act "■wore, forced home to residents in>the colony, it is at the present juncture when Victoria,' is in the whirl of a boiling cauldion of in duetrial strife. A strike commenced at midnight on Sunday on the railways in that State, which will involve the colony in the biggest struggle ever known in Australia, and result in ' most disastrous and dire consequences. It is impossible to conceive at the present moment the seriousness of the calamity, which will be felt throughout the whole State. Cables inform us that the effects of the strike have already been felt in quarters least expected, and apart from trade being paralysed, the price of food products has gone up, and all fish anc| t'riiifc supplies stopped. The trouble is the outcome of a long series of disagreements between, the heads of the Railway Department and the employees, and the present is the final act of the struggle on the part of the Government to assert on behalf of the State the right, as against the members of the public service, to safeguard its interests in its own | way. The conflict commenced with the determination of the Iryine Ministry to inaugurate a policy of reform, an important feature of which .was the application .to the public service q£ a schejne of retrenchment, whigh was f orpe,d upon them by the deplorable pondition of the country owing to the drought. The most powerful of the Railway Societies distinguished itself at this stage by threatening a strike as its protest against the refprm proposals, but the firmness of the Government, with the people of Victoria at its back, checked the disposition of "the men to adopt extreme . measures. Following upon this came the appeal of the Government to the country and the triumphant endorsement of its policy, a most important factor in its success unquestionably being the resentment felt by the electors at the threat of the engine drivers to use the railways of the country as a lever for extorting their own terms as to remuneration from the State. When, later still, the organisations of the railway ser v'ants became affiliated to the Trades Hall only one construction could be placed on their action. It was obviously dictated by a determination to use the alliance for political purposes anc} by a desire to secure the support of the Trades Hall in the resistance the railway men might propose to offer to the Government. The latter consequently, demanded the secession of the ftaiiway societies from an institution which practically qontrols all the labour organisations throughout Victoria. The railway servants pleaded that the Government, in acting as it did, interfered with them in the rightful exercise of its liberties, but the Government refused to allow the staff of the State railways to combine with j other unions for purposes which, 1 may draw those railways into the vortex of a strike. The whole point at issue seems -to be be

whether Parliament.^ the Trades Hall shall be. supreme, and both sides are determined to test their strength- The Government is determined that their powers shall not be ursurped, and has decided to advertise in every State in Australia and New Zealand for men, and, if necessary, efforts will be made to get men from India, America and Britain. On the oiher hand, the strikers have been promised financial assistance from the unions in the neighbouring States and New Zealand, and a long and bitter struggle seems inevitable, with its accompanying disruption of trade, great financial losses to the Sfcaie and the men, and distress.