The Pahiatua Herald. with which is incorporated THE PAHIATUA STAR. Published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1897.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume V, Issue 573, 22 November 1897, Page 2

The Pahiatua Herald . with which is incorporated THE PAHIATUA STAR. Published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1897.

ON THE STRIKE. There arc indications that the disastrous industrial dispute in the engineering trades in England will be brought to a close shortly. A side light is thrown upon the strike by Mr Henry Lucey in the Sydney Morning Herald, and is instructive to us. He says :—“ A talk with a friend who represents one of the biggest engineering lirrns in the world leaves in the mind a pained conviction of prolongation of the present dispute between masters and men. The employers deny the assertion made in some quarters that they are resolved once for all to fight out the ancient battle with the Trade Unions. All I can say is that between the lines of my friend’s frank communication I road that determination written in a firm hand. Rightly or wrongly, the masters are strengthened by assurances reaching them from sections of the workmen that they, too, loathe what the masters call the tyranny of the unions, and would be exceedingly glad if delivered from it on any terms. However that may be, with or without friends in the enemy’s camp, the masters mean to fight it out. ‘ Looking at the blackest side,’ my friend said, ‘We may as well be killed right out as pressed to death by a long process of added woights.’ As the men on their side appear to bo equally resolute, the prospect for the coming winter is dark indeed, whilst the effects on British trade may be permanent. There are two items of news cheerfully put forward by the men with the natural desire to show how strong is their position. One is to the effect that a meeting of workmen gathered at Bruges sent a cordial message of fraternal greeting. The other was that the German cooperators had subscribed £SOO to the fighting fund. It is a handsome sum, but represents the minutest percentage on the material advantage gained by German capitalists and workmen out of the constantly recurrent labor disputes in this country. Every big strike in England means tho immediate transference of orders to foreign countries —chiefly to Germany. It is inevitable, oven when peace has been patched up at homo, and trade begins to rotiirn to its ordinary courses, that some of the fat should stick to German fingers. The latest example of this tendency appears in the fact that tho Government of Now South Wales, specially dosirous just now to testify to tho intimate relations of the colonies with tho mother country, has been obliged to place in the United States an order for 2000 tons of rails, which it would more willingly havo bought in the English market.