The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1919.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11749, 8 February 1919, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1919.

THE labour upheaval in Britain is

British Strikes.

rapidly asanming the charac-

ter of an industrial rebellion, Regarding fcbe manner in which the epidemic of revolt swiftly flies frcm town to town and from union ro union we are apt to attribute a greater degree of seriousness to the movement than it is entitled to. Any student of human nature coa l d have foretold the present conditiofts with the certainty that an astronomer could prophesy an eclipse of the sun. For whatever sbiibolsths and war cries the present movement may inscribe on its banners, the actual basal reason lies in the more than four and a-half years of seif-repression, of hard cnntinnons labour, and probably of a permanent slstj of apprehension that the war would be lost. A con-

t-ibuting cause has bean the easy capitulation of the Government to all demands during tbe war; The resilenaa is in proportion to the pressure. Reason will come with experience. For there can be no doubt that the much dreaded and much vaunted universal strike is much less to be feared by the com munity than some abstentions from work on a large scale. That may seem paradoxical. But if we were in control of conditions during au epidemic of strikes we should welcome a quick, complste paralysis of all the wheels of industry as the best strike breaker that could be devised. There’wonld be a general surrender in of those who could least afford to maintain the war.

IP there ever were a general strike

it is certain that it would

Logic of Strikes.

teach more economic troths in a week than are now assimilated in a century. For consider the process. A thousand West Coast colliers become restive and strike owing to the plan on which the manager gets his hair cut, or something just as important. That makes it impossible for a hundred thousand poor people to ebtain coal for their winter fire. The sacred cause championed by the colliers appeals to [[tramway men and they support [it by throwing whole gystem idle. That [prevents the breadwinner of the hundred thousand houses to reach their work because they are the twopenny and penny fare people generally. Now the outrage on labour lashes the gas and electricity men into insubordination, and “each of the hundred thousand sits in darkness with his family. Then hauers take up the quarrel in the glorious name of liberty of labaur and the strikers and tbeir victims have to live on raw meat until the batchers join the cause. And so it goes on from one absurdity to another until the list of possible absurdities has been exhausted. If it is objected that there have been no st ikes against the style of the manager’s hair we simply reply that most of the grievances are just as frivolous-

TnE House of Commons seems to have had tbe

Conventionality.

shock of its life to see

some Norman M.P. arrive on a scooter The Honse is still conven' tional enough to be shocked at outrages of the kind. This could hardly have been Sir H. Norman, M.P., but must be a new member who signalises the commencement of probably an eccentric Parliamentary career with an exhibition of eccentricity and defiance ef conventions that will invest him with some sort of notoriety, until someone Telae beats him at his own game by being conveyed to the House in a wheelbarrow. There was a time when no member dared to enter Parliament without a top hat. The chimney pot was as much an essential pan of the uniform of an M.P. as the breeches that of a Bishop. But Mr Ramsay Macdonald; if he lives In history at all, will derive immortality from the fact that he entered the House for the first time with a cap on his heal, and a coat on very far removed from the conventional cut. For the House of Commons, which was then infinitely more consarvative of ancient custom than now, the world stood still and stood aghast tor a fnll minute. The forms of tne House prescribe, or did so up to very recently, that a member most don his top hat before addressing the Speakar. Labour members ased to keep one handy £for such occasions, and it was useful except when, being unused to the thing banging about,one or other of them, used to hurriedly sit on it and tnrn it into a concertina. We are, however, all creatures of convention. “My God!” said one waiter to another in a tene of tha greatest consternation, “did you see that?” “What is it,” asked the other. He poured bis tea into his saucer!”