The Sun SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1913. A GRAVE PROBLEM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10926, 15 November 1913, Page 6

The Sun SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1913. A GRAVE PROBLEM.

The thing our aooioty baa moat to fear from Labour is not organised resistance, not. victorious strikes and raised conditions, but tho black ro■eitment that follows defeat. Meet Labour half-way and you will find a new co-operation in government; stiok to your legal rights, draw the net of repressive legislation tighter; then you will presently have to deal with Labour enraged. If the anger burns free, that means revolution; if you crush out the hope of that, then sabotage and a sullen general sympathy for anarchistic crime,— H. G. Wolls.

To road some of our newspapers and to listen to some of our politicians the stranger from another planet would imagine that tho strike was a matter singular to Now Zoaland, and that the agitator as we know him in this little pin prick on the map, was 6ome vain, virulent and venomous visitant quite unfamiliar in the more fortunate comnrunities. The fact is quite otherwise. Labour unrest is world-wide; Labour 'discontent'disclosed in various unpleasant forms is disturbing every country on tho face of tho globe; and Labour problems are taxing the statesmanship and philosophy of the wisest, the most ■thoughtful and the most responsible citizens in every part of the globe. * • * ■ ■ .■ ■ • * There are people in New Zealand ,who. imagine that if they can crush the •strikers by starving them into submission and farcing them for their stomachs' 6ako to endorse a distasteful principle, that will be an end to the matter. " Onco get rid of the Red Federation," they declare, " and the doctrine of.the general strike will die a natural death." Any newspaper which questions this theory, and which declines to join the clamorous outcry for repressive legislation, is regarded by certain ignorant and short-sighted peo.plo as bearing upon its forehead the mark of. the beast.

Now let us clear our minds of parti- ■ •■ zanship and cant and get a right grip of the situation. The question of Labour unrest cannot be disposed of by an indignant wave of the hand. It will recur, and recur, and recur in more or less exasperating forms until means are devised of lessening the actual or fan- ' oied evils which give it impetus and magnitude. Let us say at once that there is prima facie less reason for Labour discontent in New Zealand than at any other point on the earth's surface. This is a young, undeveloped, ■ under-populated country with wonderful '■ natural endowments. There is no reason why, under a sane and rational. system of govern- * ment, ©very genuine worker here ' should not be prosperous and reasonably healthy and contented. There is no reason why, if we have not a sane and rational system of government, the ■working classes—who vastly outnumber the propertied and privileged classes—- ■'-'' should'not,assert their full strength at thß hallolrhox. There is no reason why, if any strik- ' ing' is to be done, it should not be done • at the ballot-box instead of upon the wharves or at the pit's mouth. It is in the interests of those who have " a Btake in the country " to see to it that the standard of living shall be raised; that the workers' wages shall be the highest possible commensurate with efficiency; that intermittent,. unhealthy and dangerous employment shall be minimised; and that every child shall be given an opportunity to exert his natural talents for the benefit of himself and the commonweal. » » • • • Theoretically all these things should , bo possible. In this country as in no '' other there is all the machinery for "educating the masses," all the machinery for assisting the aged and... infirm and such as fall by the wayside, all the machinery —some of it imperfect, no «doubt—for enabling "the popular will" to be made manifest. Wo have many of the ■ 'advantages of older countries and few of the disadvantages which the encroachment of l the population of the .. means of sustenance entails. Here, if anywhere, -there should be no Labour ' unrest, no strikes, no lock-outs, no turmoil, no irremediable evils, no violent ■ ■ setting of "class against class," no 1 flying at one another's throats. And ' f yet, here it is: the disaster is upon us. ■ iWe have "stopped the.wheels of in- '' dnstry," we have impeded ; production I and development, we have consigned ' our fleet to rot in idleness while we pelt ione another with stones and bottles and bash one another's heads with batons. The community is divided into I factions. On the one 6ide there' are I " the employers," and on the other !''' the workers," and there is more anxii>ty to discover " who's boss here?" " than to devise "means out of a stupid ' and characteristically human ©utangle'xnent. We are all so anxious to demonstrate that we are right, that we have all long ago gone almost inextricably -wrong. * « • * • It is a monstrous predicament from .which we, can only bo extricated when one of the combatants has had the felicity of treating its defeated opponent to a diet of dirt. The community has, perforce, to stand impotently by »nd watch the Capitalistic influences of the community slowly and inevitably bringing a Labour combination into a ! worse State of subjection than it was in before the row started. • • • « » Quite characteristically it has been 'made to appear that because Labour precipitated the outbreak Labour must take the responsibility for the whole of the subsequent developments. But, admitting the premises, admitting that Labour was ill-advised and ehockingly badly generalled, we do not propose to laxempt Capital from its share of reoponsibility for the harm which has been inflicted on the commonweal throughout the developments of this disgraceful episode. Underlying the revolt of Labour are grievances which cannot be gainsaid. Wo have educated the worker, we have given him advantages unparalleled in any other country. We have denied him nothing except justice and a fair share in the heritage which theoretically should be the common portion. It is that which he is struggling in his blind and brutal fashion to achieve. The lot of the casual worker in this oountry is little better than that of his contemporary .Elsewhere. He gets more wages, certainly, but the intermittenco of his emj ployment, coupled with the oxactions ■ I'of his ground landlord and the a=itoIxaatio increasa i& the price of comiaoji-

ties, deprives him of that nominal advantage, and ho is little better off at the end of tho year than the worker in lees favoured communities. Tho capitalist can and does reimburso himself with interest for any encroachment which is made upon his resources, but the intermittent workor has no siuh opportunity. Tho more ho luliils tho duties of citizenship tho greater are the penalties imposed upon him in tho process.

The capitalist has cornered the means, of production, distribution and exchange. He has monopolised the land, monopolised tho facilities for sea transit, monopolised tho banking institutions, monopolieed tho wholesale distribution of supplies. He holds the community in the hollow of his hands: quite legitimately according to existing usages, but quite inexorably. Capital hero is just as honest and as scrupulous as capital ever is anywhere. If Labour were as provident, wise, efficient and resourceful as it ought theoretically to be, it would, with all the opportunities at its command, have met the competition of Capital with some master-stroke of co-operation. That it has failed to do bo is a defect in evolutionary procedure for which a variety of circumstances are responsible. Capital has been organised for a very long while; the solidification of Labour interests is a comparatively recent development. • » « * *

But because Capital is omnipotent arid Labour in the chrysalis stage affords no reason for aguing that Labour must by popular sanction emerge defeated from every struggle. That community is most to be envied in which the distribution of wealth is equalised according to exertion. The more the earning and spending power of the unit is augmented, the better it is for tho great body of the business people. The higher the standard of comfort in the individual home, the more admirable is the stamp of citizen, which, after all, is the ideal of true statesmanship. * * * » •

If, in tho endeavour to crush out a virulent and contumacious Labour faction an injury is inflicted upon any section of the working classes, the disaster will react right through the community. It is the duty of every responsible New Zealander to 6tudy this grave problem in order that moans may be devised of remedying grievances and averting the conditions from which the unrest of Labour springs. No combination of working people can be permanently crushed; but every Labour organisation can, if wisely advised and officered, become a potent auxiliary in the general uplift.