A COAL STRIKE.

Patea Mail, Volume XLV, 21 February 1921, Page 3

A COAL STRIKE.

HOW IT WAS DEALT WITH IX KANSAS. A correspondent signing himself “How Bong” writes as follows to the editor of the Xew Zealand Times: — Sir. —Coal strikes are not peculiar to Xew Zealand. They had a coal strike in Kansas, U.S.A., and this is how. in the Xew York Tribune, Governor Allen, of Kansas, explains it; “We marie an investigation of the strata comprising the State. As the toil stratum we found one and one-half per cent of the population made up of the big employers. The bottom stratum comprising live and one-half per cent., was composed of labour. In between eras a stratum composed of the remaining ninety-three per cent. That ninety three per cent, is PS. “With the passage of the Adamson Law, Labour became a contestant for the honour of the upper stratum; Inn wo, you and I, and the rest of us in the same walk of life, haven't moved. We remain the middle stratum. We are an immense, good - matured, .inarticulate mass. We arc utterly submerged. The upper stratum and the lower stratum whack each other over our shoulders. They starve us, they freeze us, they subject us to every inconvenience as to travel and communication.

“Well, our good nature reached the limit when the operators and the coal miners fell and quit producing; coal at the moment when a blizzard hit the State. Thousands of our women and children were in actual danger .of freezing and starving to death. Then the nine-tenths upheaved.” The upheaval led to the Governor appealing for outside labour, and within 24 hours after his appeal 10,000 men offered their services, and worked the mines. Then the Legislature passed an Act established an Industrial Court, and enacted that anyone taking part in an arrangement or conspiracy to lessen the production of food, fuel, or clothing committed an offence, and was liable to punishment. The judges of the Court could act without any person moving, them to do so, or any ton citizens could petition, and on their complaint the Court could interfere. The constitutionality of the Act came into question, and Justice Curran upheld the •statute, and issued an injunction forbidding a strike. In his judgment, the judge said; “A groat ddal has been said of the Divine right to strike; the Divine right to strike where it affects the health and the welfare of the public must be relegated to the realm where the Divine right of kings has been sent.”

And coal strikes ceased in Kansas. There is ;i difference between New Zealand and Kansas. AVo have not any Governor Allen in our midst with his power, and our Parliament has been unaware of the Kansas precedent. How long, we wonder, will the middle stratum allow itself to be penalised by the upper or lower stratum, or by both of them.’