The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1912. WAIHT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 278, 21 May 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1912. WAIHT.

Waihi, the mining town in the Hauraki mining district, which has been existing for many years on the gold won from the Martha reef, and its people, offer a most interesting study. It is almost an isolated community existing to a large J extent selfishly and torn with mental ] conflicts because its community is more or less cosmopolitan. Waihi miners have much time for argument—and mischief, for that matter. They are highly paid, their work is comparatively easy, and their money sure. Almost eveijA, move of the public interest in Waihi difcf closes the fact that Waihi is criminal in its methods. "Socialism" has a large hold and is the quaintest article of the kind known to students, for the town is practically supported, kept and fed by British capitalists. As a matter of fact, but for the cyanide and the British capitalist Waihi would still be an uninhabited desert. Waihi showed its quality by voting prohibition, not because it was aggressively teetotal, but because the local publicans refused to reduce the price of beer. The Waihi miner in the mass has a notion that he can run creation, and the only available bit of creation being his town, he runs that. The position at the beginning of the absurd and mtterly ruinous strike which is now taking place at Waihi was that the mine was a little discredited because of a drop in the shares consequent on the poverty or petering out of the Martha lode. The directors, without consulting New Zealand shareholders, decided to take a referendum of London shareholders on the question of using reserve capital to exploit other territory. So that this, one of the greatest money-makers New Zealand has or is likely to hare, is doubly damned by the action of the miners who are so easily led by a few of the skulking demagogues who curse New Zealand and joyfully "paralyse industry." The present trouble is really a fight between an organisation which scorns pacific measures and a section which declares that it will abide by the Arbitration Act. The engine-men, who are the cause of the trouble, want to register as a separate union under the Arbitration Act and so cut adrift from the "Federation of Labor," which is becoming more and more sinister in the damage it is doing. The Miners' Union in Waihi either does run Waihi or believes it does. The Federation of Labor says "Strike!" and the Union calls its men out. If it can't maintain a grip on the engine-men, well, anything can happen to Waihi and its wife; the Waihi mine can go to wreck and ruin, and the shareholder can do what he likes about it. It is being said that the action of the Federation of Labor in arbitrarily laying down conduct for an independent section of workers is unjust and unfair. It is at least illegal. Mean-

time the great mino is a groat watcrI hole, and the action of the miners, led, by the hare-brained anarchists who infest sVaihi, will probably bo deeply regretted by the men. The stoppage of 'the pumps means that the mine will scon, become full of water. If pumping !•■> tesumed within a week, Waihi gen- ■ rally can't possibly go to work for several weeks, and of course Waihi and its anarchists and the men. who follow the anarchists expect men who are still toiling elsewhere to keep their mouths full of bread. New Zealand can get along quite well and obtain its three meals a flay if the Waihi mine is never dry again, and, on the whole, there is no urgent reason why the country should trouble about a parcel of persons who are really ridiculously self-assertive. In this Waihi strike there is no suggestion of ill-treat-ment by the company. It is simply a matter of Labor Federation discipline, exercise of its illegal .powers, and the personal conceit that is at the bottom of all these absurd bothers. For absurdity the Waihi strike is on a par with the Brisbane tram strike, the difference being that the service was necessary to the people of Brisbane, but that the Waihi mine and its men are not in the least necessary to anybody. The Waihi Gold Mining Company is probably not valorous enough to try the only means by which it could score a win. It is able to close the Waihi mine for six months if it wants to. It has a better moral to do so than the Federation of Labor has to stir up strife for such a slender cause. There is no doubt that in many directions Labor regards strikes for moral reasons as a species of valor. It is the valor of the man who sings out for the other fellow to feed his wife and family while he is idling; the valor of the man who is so well cared for and paid that he has to invent something to growl at; the valor of the man who Is getting on the nerves of the normal people of-New Zealand. As we said on a former occasion, a time may come when the public, as distinct from mere howlers, anarchists, "socialists," agitators and demagogues, will take a hand. At pre- | sent the striker says, "I'll be idle as long as I like and take my job when I like." I In the future the public, or the public I company, may with perfect justice say, ■ 'There will be no job for you when you apply."