OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2841, 27 September 1890, Page 4

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(I'Ull.U Ut'll OWN COKIiIi.SI'ONhK.VI'.) Sydnkv, August i">. An important case lias just been decided in favour of the < lovenriient. In what have cumc to be known as the Iliddilstouu frauds, certain moneys paid in to tlio credit of the Registrar-general wer* withdrawn by curtain clerks of the oflicc, for their own purposes. Some of the prominent cricketing idols of the day it will lie remembered, were nii\ed up in these transactions. 'I he registrar, in blissful unconsciousness of what was going on, continued lo draw cheques, in order to make his payments to the I.rcasury, and the fraud was not discovered until the account was overdrawn, XG,lli7. At this stage tiie bank began to make the inquiries, which it ought to have made long before, and a consequent exposure onsued, followed by several criminal trial*. The important question still remained, who should bear the loss ? The bank naturally wished to recover from the Government, and instituted an action accordingly. But the Full Court have now decided that their remedy lies against the Registrar-general, and that they have no claim against the Treasury. The money was clearly neither paid for the Government at their request, nor had it boen lent to them. The Court also declared that if the bank had discharged their plain and manifest duty by making inquiries as soon as the overdraft began to accumulate they would have prevented the embezzlement of a largo sum of money and would perhaps have saved more than one person from participating in crime. From which it may bo concluded that there is still justice to be obtained in the land, although the process of seeking it is well-nigh prohibitive on account of its expeuse, tediousness and uncertainty.

The strike as to oue aspect of it, is virtually over. Even the federated unions have found that (without the exereisc of lawless violence, which is inadmissible) they arc powerless to stop the wheels of commerce. The non-Union ■wool, which they were to " boycott" at all hazards, is being shipped under their very noses. They have inveigled numbers of unhappy Unionists into leaving their work for very inadequate cause, and they now lind Lhat work (dadly taken up by other men who have been engaged on permanent agreements. In a short time, except for the angry talk and violent action of the baser sort of those who have allowed themselves to be thus befooled, the labour ditliculty will be at an end. In Japan if a man deems himself insulted, he does not "go for" his assailant. He goes to the quarters of the man who has wronged him and disembowels himself there. He has the satisfaction of rellecliug that lie makes a most dramatic protest against the injustice he has anll'ered, and that he inllicts a certain amount of odium aud inconvenience on the original aggressor. But the display of petulance is perfectly futile. Ho loses his life, and the world goes on as before. It seems to me that a strike, unless (like that of the London dock labourers for instance) it is on well understood issue that carries the effective and practical sympathy of the public with it, is the "happy despatch," the Japanese self-immolation, of the working classes. The work which they disdainfully throwup, hundreds of their less fortunate fellow men arc glad to take up. They go out, aud the others go in. All that they gain (and in this they have the advantage of the Japanese) is a lesson in experience by which it is to be hoped they will profit. If the rullians who are now employing their lungs and their strength in howling at free labourers and otherwise maltreating them, wen: to turn the force of their execration upon their own leaders they would not be one whit less repulsive and' cowardly than they are at present, 'nut I hey would aL least be attacking their real enemies, and attacking them in the only quarter in which I hey appear to lie vulnerable. A strike of seamen ami wharf labourers (as I wrote at the com mcneement of tiie struggle) has eveu less prospect of being successful than a strike of skilled labourers. In Australia nearly every other working man you meet has at some time or other been a sailor, and every sailor is is "J/h'io fully competent to handle cargo. Indeed, the employment of wharf labourers at other than terminal ports is a refinement of modern civilisation resorted to on account of the feverish push and hurry of hnsiness. If the seamen ami wharf labourers were a highly-skilled class (like engineers, for instance) « ho could not be replaced, their project of dictating terms to their fellow-citizens might have a little more prospect of an ignoble success. But at present their attitude is as silly as their claims are extortionate and indefensible. Many of them are slowly awaking to this view of the case, and would very gladly return to their work it they were uot deterred by the fear of illtreatrnent from the more violent spirits among their fellows. This fear of illusage seems to lie the sheet anchor of this latest development of Unionism—if not, in theory still in practice. If it were done away with the strike, so far as the great body of the rank and file are concerned, would be at an end within a week.

A very tempera!' t it-incut of the claims of Uuionis'ii !r.i ; l» ;, eii published by Mr I 'Ivimpion, an acknowledged representative of the more advance.l school oi I'.ritiei Ti'i'les Lui mi.its. S i temperate iinlce I ii il. and in such striking centrist to tile mil inuiiatory atnl incendiary I in»ua.'i'. of t'le labour org ills, that employers generally hail it as a kind of relief, and many of them declare that they could frankly and freely accept the main planks of Mr Champion's platform as a basis for negotiation. In this, however, I don't think they have exercised their usual perspicacity. It is true that Mr Chanipiou concedes to employers the right of employing whom they please, and of dismissing iii'dlicioiit, idle or nnruly workmen. He also declares that the unious should not compel any employer to ask of men before engaging them whether Lhey belong to the Union or not. Incredible as it may appear, these rights have been almost altogether ignored in the present struggle, and the employers have found themselves compelled to combine in order to maintain them. Mr Champion's outspoken declaration came to them, therefore, as a great relief, so great that thoy overlook the fact that Mr Champion also claims the right for all workers to refuse to handle the products of non-Union labour, According to him, then, all industries arc to be carried on under the threat of a universal strike. Occasions for striking could not fail to occur daily in all the great centres of labour. The most petulant cross-grained and reckless of the workers would lie the first to take ad vantage of them, and their fellow Unionists would be put upon their honour to back them up, If ctieh a contention i.s admitted there is an end I o all hope of ba'ii.onifju: co opt ration, ami tho;.tito of things which v.u'itd be biought in would inevitably teiiuimite in civil war. Mr Champion equally with the Trades and LabuurCouuul, imlntets the vain drtain of ■; .terminating lie: non-unionist. But he piopojCj to do i! io a ,|ui< l; i and more legal manner, and v. ilhoul so much shtieking and screaming of his intentions. All history shows that it is not in the power of one school of thought to exterminate another even by conversion. Paganism armed with all Ihe ruthless power of Imperiiilltouieand backed by ifco .sympathies of the masses could not exterminate Christianity. Roman (Catholicism, when equally powerful, equally failed to exterminate Protestantism, just a; Protestantism in its turn has failed to exterminate scepticism. Unionism is as powerless to extirpate individualism, as individualism to extirpate Unionism, and it is only brating its head against u stone wall ill making the a; tempt. Each has a right to live and carry on its own work within its own limits and the most obvious and necessary of those limits is that each shall cordially respect theriflils and [il.r-t l y f,l Ihe 'M'lir-t . '