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Wellington Independent, Volume XXIX, Issue 3995, 7 January 1874, Page 2

Recent strikes in New Zealand amongst artizans and laborers have been numerous and widespread. Tailors, shoemakers, bakers, butchers, carpenters and joiners, painters, seamen, and others have joined in the common movement for the obtainraent of increased wages, whilst simultaneous efforts have been made to curtail the hours of labor. In the majority of cases the masters have been obliged to succumb, in many cases without an attempt at resistance. The truth is, the workmen have been masters of the situation. They have possessed an efficient system of organisation, whilst the masters have possessed little or none; they have been enabled to act with forethought and combination, whilst the masters bave been disunited and unprepared. It may not be inappropriate to look abroad into larger fields for examples of the working and results of similar movements. Of late years the improvements in the condition and prospects of the working classes in Great Britain have been rapid and great. Cheap education, cheap literature, an extensive system of popular lectures, the establishment of trades unions, and other organisations, have increased the knowledge and self-dependence of those classes. A brisk interchange of ideas, and the rapid spread of information, more particularly on questions of wages and employment, have raised the laborer in the social scale, and enhanced his demands. He is no longer content to blindly follow the lead of others ; ho will think for himself, and will often put forth his strength in an intelligent effort to reform abuses, or to remove obstacles in the path of his advancement. Moreover, during the past thirty years there has been a rise in the price of living. It may be objected that living has not become actually dearex', but then it is undeniable that the number of persons who desire to live well has increased. Wealth has found newchannels, and has flowed down to lower social stratas. Birth is no longer the only avenue to gond society. The skilled laborer and artisan of the present look for an education, and consequent advancement, for their children on a scale fur beyond what was possible to themselves in former days. It is not denied that the efforts of the working classes to obtain improved wages, and an ameliorated condition, have been productive of beneficial results generally. On the other hand, the means by which these results bave beea achieved htivo been too frequently abused. The ill-considered strikes in the coal and iron industries in Great Britain have already produced the most lamentable results, and the lesson is one which should not be lost upon us. Competition regulates wages, It is a question of demand and supply, of the existing proportion between capital and population. Capftal in this Colony has been largely increased by the enhanced price of wool ; and it has been abun-

dantly unlocked owing to the increased confidence of capitalists in the general prosperity and prospects of the Colony. Settlement has progressed, financial undertakings have been launched, a brisk demand for lubor, and an increased rate of wages have resulted. The construction of public works on a large scale has afforded ample employment for all, and by absorbing immigration, prevented any disturbance of the labor market. It speaks volumes for the resources of the Colony, and the confidence existing in the minds of capitnlists when, in the face of the large lecent accessions to our population, our industries are increasing in activity, and the demand for labor is greater than ever. So far, the working classes of this Colony have floated along on the tide of prosperity, free from anxiety for the present, and often careless of the future. But there is invariably a limit to such a condition of things, and if the workmen come to grief at the crisis they will have none but themselves to blame. There is a limit to strikes. Increased wages mean increased prices. Exorbitant demands on the part of the laborer will reduce profits to a minimum, restrict legitimate enterprise, cause capital to be locked up, employment will be diminished, the labor market will be over stocked, and wages will fall. Let the workmen themselves look to this in time, or should an evil hour come they will have no power of self-adjustment. Having gone thus far, we will proceed to point out what we conceive to be the means of averting disaster. That means, we submit, would be provided in an efficient system of conciliatory arbitration between employers and workmen, between capital and labor. There is abundant precedent for this. The Trades Union of Great Britain have striven for years to establish such a system. The engineers in 1851, the Preston weavers in 1853, and the West Yorkshire miners in 1858, successively proposed it. The Macclesfield silk weavers and their employers in 1848, mutually established a Court of Arbitra tion, which existed with the most beneficial results for four years, and was only broken up by the obsiinacy of an employer who set its decision at defiance. More recently, the amalgamated carpenters and joiners in many parts of Great Britain have regularly referred disputes between themselves and their employers to arbitration. But the best example, that we know of, is the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation of the Nottingham hosiery and glove trade, which was established in 1800, and is composed of equal numbers of masters and workmen. Since its establishment, strikes and lock-outs in that industry have been unknown, and all disputes have been promptly and amicably settled by its decisions. In an address before the Social Science Association, Mr Mundella, the President of the Court, said ; — In the hosiery trade, we were in a state of chronic war j one branch would strike, and then the other nine or tea would support the one on strike. .... In the midst of a strike, which lasted three months, it was proposed to lock out the branches until all were willing to coma in. Some of us objected ; I did, and two or three others did, and we said, " Let ua try to adopt some better plan to settle the question once for all." We went to the men j we bumbled ourselves, : as'some suid. .... We said to the men, " We want to talk to you, and see if we can't devise some better plan. You are spending a shilling or eighteenpence a week to fight us ; let us try to fix what prioes should bo." I had some crude ideas, derived from the " Conseils des Prudhommes," in France ; wo put them into practice j and, although it has taken some years to get things to work smoothly, we have succeeded. For eight years we have not had a single strike ; and never in the history of our town and trade was there suoh a cordial and good understanding between mastera and workmen bh there is now. " For eight years we have not had a single strike."