BRIGHTER DAYS IN AUSTRALIA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18584, 3 June 1930, Page 9

BRIGHTER DAYS IN AUSTRALIA.

End Of Coal Impasse.

TWENTY COLLERIES RESUMING. (United Press Association —Tiy Electrle Tel egraph—Copyright.) (Received June 2, 8.50 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 2. Twenty of the thirty-four idle northern colleries resumed work to-day. It is expected the remainder will reopen during the week. ATTACK ON SHEARERS’ AWARD. REDUCTION OF WAGES PROPOSED. (United Press Association—By Beotrle Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received June 2, 9.20 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 2. The fall in wool prices has forced the Grazers’ Association to seek a variation of the shearers wages and the Commonwealth Arbitration Court is being asked to reduce wages for all classes of shearing by 30 per cent. Alternatively the Court is asked to suspend the award for one year. One reason is that greasy wool has dropped from 18d to lOd per lb, which is lower than the cost of production. Another is a fall in the price of sheep and sheepskins. The hearing has been adjourned. WAR ON ARBITRATION COURT. EFFECT OF COMPULSORY UNIONISM. The evils of compulsory unionism hit the individual wage-earner as hardly as they do the employer. A man who seeks to rise above the production level of the slowest and laziest member of his group, is dubbed a traitor to his class and threatened with union discipline. In this paradise of the working class, the way of the individual who wishes to work hard and get ahead is indeed a thorny one. Almost the only hope of advancement is to become a union official and enter politics. The dead level of slow incompetence to which the perverted union policy forces the average worker, breaks the heart of the honest craftsman. All holidays and petty privileges won for him by his zealous leaders can never birng the content that pride in his work was wont to give.

Australia has attempted to divorce wages from the productivity of labour. She reversed the American plan, and declared for a statutory prosperity. Her awakening may prove bitter. At the present moment, out of a total of 2,500,000 breadwinner?, 120,000 are unemployed. In this rich barely developed continent, industrial progress has been arrested, and the scanty population of 6,500,000 souls provide hungry queues to crowd the employment exchanges.

Until free play is again allowed to private enterprise in the development and control of the industry it originates, the cause of Australian progress is seriously retarded. Politics will not necessarily bring this gift of freedom. The wage earners, however, are likely to discover for themselves that their artificial prosperity has disappeared, and to save themselves from the ranks of the unemployed they may be expected to seek freedom from the unions and the Arbitration Courts. Already some see the writing on the wall. The last three great strikes, engineered by the militant unions, have been crushed by the weight of public opinion among the great body of the breadwinners. The resistance of the New South Wales Northern miners to wage-reduc-tion weakened to breaking point, and the men ar ; e turning to work at lower rates - of pay after suffering grevious losses.