THE EFFECT OF THE STRIKE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8869, 30 August 1890, Page 3

THE EFFECT OF THE STRIKE.

The Wellington Post says :— " If the struggle goes much further it will become one to the death between Capital and Labour, and must result in deep disaster to both. The stoppage of the coal supplies will throw out of employment a vast number of hands engaged in manufacturing and other industries. The meat preserving industry, to which the colony mainly owes what prosperity if. enjoys, will, for instance, be completely crushed. This will touch the country people greatly. The other manufacturers compelled to put out their fires for want of fuel will flood the country with unemployed without means of subsistence. The merchants, having no business doing, will be compelled to dispense with the labour they employ, and their men will swell the army of those who have no work to do and no means to live on. The actual strikers may have some small resources, or procure some slight assistance else where, although neither the resources nor the assistance will amount to much. Those who are thrown out of employment through the strike will not have even this help. We cannot think that the Maritime Council can have fully considered or realized the terrible results which may, and which it is to be feared will, result from this strike if it is persevered in. It is not yet, however, too late to avert these dreadful consequences, and to nndo what has been done. Mr Millar and his colleagues, by their action in regard to the threatened strike over the Whitcombe and Tombs affair, showed that they possessed the moral courage to admit an error of judgment, to retract threat, and to retrace their steps when the public interests, were in danger of sacrifice. by unwise persistance. We do not believe- that the object of the Council is to plunge the colony into general misery and ruin, over a dispute of this kind, which does not primarily affect it. They may have acted hastily, and not have fully understood what the effect of their action would be. Undoubtedly they have taken up a wrong position, and one which they cannot sustain. They should not, thereford, be ashamed, or hesitate to retreat from it. Honourable retreat is still open (to them, and every consideration of justice, mercy, patriotism, and even selfinterest, demands that they should take advantage .of the opportunity. If they do not, but on the contrary permit this struggle to assume the dimensions which it will do if allowed to develope, they will have struck the completely fatal blow at the whole system of Trades Unionism — one from the evil effects of which it will not recover for many years, possibly not within the present generation. Any advance on the part of the Maritime Council towards a pacific solution of the difficulty should meet with a hearty response from the other side, or the responsibitity for what may hereafter occur will be shifted to those who neglect to seize and improve any opportunity for a peaceful adjustment of differences.