THE POSITION ABLY STATED.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9752, 25 May 1903, Page 4

THE POSITION ABLY STATED.

The Melbourne Age of May 11 has an article on the strike which very clearly and forcibly states the position. It stSfces :— Tin's matter far transcends the life of any Ministry. If one Ministry can be turned out on one question, another can be dealt with m a similar fashion, and ■by an exhaustive process Parliament would permanently sit an labor under the duress of organised coteries. A parallel example will illustrate this. There has been some discontent m the ranks of the State constabulary, as there generally is m every section of every public service. The country depends on its police for the repression of the crimi- . nal elements. If the railway men are to be. permitted to strike as a means of compelling attention to their demands, no one can deny a similar right to the police. It is easy to see what this would mean. At North Melbourne on Saturday night some of the strikers were alleged to havo committed an assault on one of the drivers who did not join m the strike. It was even said that three policemen looked on at the outrage and did nothing to preserve" order. It may be that the police themselves, or a section of them, are m sympathy with the railway strikers. Suppose these railway men proceed to undoubted acts of violence, and take, the law into their own hands, are the police to be allowed to strike m aid of the rioters? Clearly they have as much right to strike as had the railway men. And they may do so yet if it be laid down that the Government servants are as free to strike as the employes of private firms. A strike of the police would at once hand over the orderly government of the State to the hordes of evildoers who are always m hiding. The streets would no longer be safe, nor any man's property secure. Yet that is the strictly logical outcome of fighting this strike "to a finish," and of any Parliamentary sympathy being given to the offenders. The absurdity of a lawful Government going down before the dictum of an outside irresponsible body of men, as this firebrand politician suggests, may bo illustrated m another way. It will be admitted by everyone that if these railway men may successfully strike against percentage reductions m their pay, and for affiliation with an outside labor organisation, they are equally afc liberty to strike for an increased rate of pay which they may think due to them. It is merely a question of what they may v think reasonable; and if they have the power they claim to have, the Government which would concede one point must equally concedo the other. They would render State management of the railways impossible, and compel the community to adopt a system of leasing the State property to private hands. The principle would go further. The employees of all Government workshops would stand m the same relations. The State could not retain and profitably work its railways,

very case be the master, and could exact, lis own terms. Tho whole idea is lliooughly revolutionary. One of the strike eaders is reported to have expressed sorow for the sufferings of the public, but lonsolcd himself by the rellection that >n the whole it served tho people right or not intervening at an earlier dale on johalf of the railway men. Such ideas is these reveal the lax notions current m some minds as to the forces that make or orderly government. The people have no business to intervene m these matters. The functions of ho people begin and end with the selec;ion of a Parliament. That Parliament must govern the country, or cease to be a tree Parliament. To that Parliament all ilia dissatisfied elements of the community have a right to appeal. None of them has a right to employ force or coercion. These railway n>en know that Parliament is summoned to debate and decide their case. They refused to abide by that Constitutional tribunal. They claim to have struck work m defence of their legal rights. But they equally declined to test those legal rights m the courts of the country, for they have precipitated a strike. They have sought not the arbitrament of law, nor the arbitrament of the High Court of Parliament. They have, m fact, pronounced any intervention of Parliament as "unfair. 1 They will have war only as the final arbiter — a war against lawful government and the interests of the people. The railway men m these crisis are no ordinary strikers, such as those who band to resist private oppression. They are as truly rebels against State authority as any armed band of insurgents who take the field to wrest by force compliance with their wishes. They have openly defied the law. Unless Responsible Government is to fail, they must be taught a severe lesson. But the country will require to possess courage, patience and invincible resolution, if tho trouble is to be easily surmounted, and. if the principles which underlie free Constitutional Government are to be maintained.