RAILWAYS AND UNIONS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 35, 26 September 1911, Page 8

RAILWAYS AND UNIONS.

Tho testimony offered by Lord (.'laud Hamilton before the Railways Commission, now sitting at Home, is a highly significant, indication of tho attitude tiiat the Railway Companies have generally taken tip toward the workers. Tho crux of the whole question is that tho companies refuse to recognise the union, says tho Auckland “Star.” Naturally they prefer to deal with the individual workman, who has often neither tiie intelligence nor the experience, nor the independence of character that, might enable him to plead ids cause with effect, and who is in any case entirely at the mere? of his employers. Lord Claud Hamilton holds that to recognise tho unions would lead straight to chaos and disaster, and yet he proposes that industrial disputes should ho submitted to arbitration. How can the views of the workers bo put fairly before an Arbitration Commission unless by their chosen representatives? and how can the workers select representatives and delegate to them the defence ot their rights and tho expression of their opinions unless they organise? The plain truth is that, the typo of employer represented by Lord Claud Hamilton will not recognise the unions because lie fears them, and ho knows that without organisation the workers are absolutely impotent. Tho "spirit, in which such men. approach the discussion of the rights of Labour is aptly illustrated in tho rest of Lord Hamilton’s remarks. Ho would place the power of arbitration in luo hands of a High Court, judge—“a person of lower standing is not acceptable to tho railway companies” ; ho would devise heavy penalties, including imprisonment for breaking awards; ’no would make no attempt to satisfy “the disturbers of public order.” That last touch is truly characteristic. It is easy enough to drive men to disturb the peace by trampling on their rights, by ignoring . their grievances, , by enforcing unjust laws against them. If this is the spirit in which tho railway companies have conducted their recent controversies with their employees, Ihe wonder, is not that tho men struck, but that they over consented to go back again without the full concession of all their claims.