The Pahiatua Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1928. AN ABSURD STRIKE.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10843, 23 May 1928, Page 4

The Pahiatua Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1928. AN ABSURD STRIKE.

The N.S.W. cooks’ shipping dispute is still unsettled, but the Union is now apparently returning to reason, as it is repoited the members are anxious for a conference with the owners to discuss proposed term g ol settlement. The strike, which is an absurd one, arising, as it did, over a few trivial questions, has already cost the shipowners and men a vast amount of money. Two months ago the cooks on the' Ulimaroa asked the owners to add an additional cook and a scullery man to the ship’s complement. The company refused, so all the cooks walked off the vessel, and the cooks on other of the company’s vessels soon followed suit. The absurdity of the affair would be laughable hut for tile tragic side of the picture. A Melbourne paper said some time ago: The shipping industry in Australia seems not far from extinction. No industry cam be dragged through years of continuous industrial warfare and survive. It is only necessary to cast the mind back 20 years or so to a time when there was life and activity and bustle in our ports and on our coastal trade routes. To-day our inter-State shipping services are- but a shadow of what they were, although there have intervened 20 years oif great industrial and commercial development. The barest necessities of sea-borne transport are poorly catered for ; even such services as survive are interrupted two or three times a year, for weeks or even months, at a stretch, by senseless disputes. What the shipping industry in Australia, needs, and needs urgently, is goodwill and common sense. Arrogance and bitterness are doing nothing except to spread unemployment and disruption. If this condition continues, the result will assuredly be national bankruptcy.