[PETBLISHH* DAILY.] FRIDAY, JUKE 11, 1909. A STRIKE LESSON,

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12793, 11 June 1909, Page 4

The Wanganui Heralds [PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1909. A STRIKE LESSON,

Xow that the Broken Hill struggle has ended, and there ie time and opportunity for reflection, the disastrous results of a,U tempting to enforce industrial demands by recourse to strikes are impressively emphasised. The men have lost .£275,000 in wages alone, but these figures give no idea of the extent and scope of the injury, material and physical, social and industrial, inflicted not only upon those more immediately concerned in the dispute, biit upon the whole community. .£275,000 is the sum the men would have earned had they gone on working and allowed their dispute about the rates of pay to go to the Arbitration Court for hearing in the ordinary way, which the mine owners suggested. Tho charge has yet to be calculated for the time which must elapse before the mines and works are put in running order again, and also for the infinitely greater period to go by ere they resume operations on their wonted scale. Added to the lc6S of wages are the broken homes, the four and a-half months of anxiety and suffering from lack of even frugal comforts, and probably in many cases of absolute necessaries, the rancour and >11-feeling of it all, to say nothing of the loss the community has sustained by the interference with the commercial deve^pment of the country. On the credit side, what have the men to show? An answer to this is supplied by the Sydney Telegraph: The records of a long fight, flattering to their reputation as staunch unionists, but smudged by much substitution, of wild and furious passions for the same process of law and order; and the maintenance of rates and conditions of employment which, as events have shown, would have been secured for them without the

at rife and the turmoil they engaged in. Tho employers offered before the cessation of work occurred, it is well to recollect, to eubmit the case to the Arbitration Court, and oay into a fund for subsequent disposal the difference between the rates the men asked and those they were prepared, voluntarily, to give. And while the men have lost and suffered so heavily to gain nothing they would not have obtained by peaceful, constitutional means, how lias John Darling come through the fight? Scnthless, practically, and with a property much enhanced in market value. Ho has all the ore in his mine still, whereas had the industry been kept going he ••vould have taken out seme 200,000 tons and trrafc.?d it for no profit, such has been the state of the metal markets. If the men had taken him at his word he would have been obliged to keep all his works poing. Instead, he can re-start just so many of them as are profitable under ex-isti-ig conditions, and when prices improve he can begin to mine the ore which in other ciicumetances he would have had to draw upon during the past four and a half months at a loss. There is, certainly, the cost of deterioration of the plant in the idle interval to be tome, but as a set-off his shares are worth ,£175,000 more to-day than on the date when- he and his men parted company. The Proprietary property has improved by £ 120,000 in the share market and Block 10 by .£55.000, since the beginning of the year. Except that he, too, had his worries and anxieties, John Darling is an all-round gainer by what has occurred. But there is another party to all such conflicts, and it stands to lose every time. That is the trading community, and through its reflex action, the general public. What 20 weeks of idleness at the Barrier and Port Pirie has meant in. loss of earnings and profits wo can approximately calculate; what it has meant in depreciation of the public welfare by the stoppage of monetary circulation is incalculable. We can only imagine the grave and widespread effects of such a disruption of business. Perhaps, ultimately these experiences will have their valuable uses. The sum of their teaching should convince the trades-union-ists that they never have a grievance so great that the redress of it by the mob- , law principle of the strike is preferable to its reference to the Courts of the land which have been established for their benefit.