Are Strikes Lawful ?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 36, 4 September 1902, Page 4

Are Strikes Lawful ?

Mgr. Boxomelli, Bishop of Cremona, has recently issued some important instructions to his clergy on the labor question in Italy. The d.cument, weighty in itself, haa attracted universal attention on account of the personality of its venerable author, who is one of the most prominent members of the Italian episcopate. In his circular on the labor question, of which the Rome correspondent of the Tablet gives a sunnsary, he writes mainly about strikes and the conditions under which they are lawful, 'Ia a strike lawful V the Bishop asks, and he answers in the affirmative. The workman's labor is his own, even more than the hout-e, or field, or produce is the property of the master. As the master may refuse to sell at a certain price, or un ler certain conditions, so may the workman too. A.nd what one workman may do a thousand ca >do together. But if the workman ha« already undertaken to labor uither in the factory or in the fields for a definite periol of time, he cannot htnke work before that time has expired without committing an act of inj jstioe, and he U responsible to his master for the consequent damages. ' Yet many of you workmen whom I now with panieularly to address,' Fays the Bishop, 'have struck work when you were already bound by previous contracts made and accepted. Yoj have done ill ; you have acted unjustly. But you will say to me, 'The contract* were too onerous and unjust, we were constrained to make them, and, therefore, we had the light to break them." ' The Bishop allows their right to break them if they were unjust in the first instance. But he points out that nobody is a judge of his own case, and they should have had recourse to prudent men of influence, to he parish priests, or syndics, or magistrates, who would see that justice was done them. Even when the injustice is p (tent, and their rifjht to fltrike incontestable, h • recommends them (strong ly to try every means of mediation before striking. Strike is the last arm of defence ; it is svar, and, like war, it brings danger and loss in its train Families have to euffer v. hile the strike cmtinue.«,an<l the. rit-e in wageb rarely compeu.-a'es f »r th : preceding losp. 11^ invt ighs airsoust many lorms of unjust treatment th it are found in hi.s own diocese and against the prevalent absenteeism. 'IvI v is folly,' the circular concludes, 'to think that the actual labor movc.uent can bo checked by force. For the force is in the people, who know the power of their numbers in voting and in the efficacy of organi-atiou. It is an illusion to fcuppose that armies can restrain the proletari ue, which is au army in itself and furnif-heg the army of thft nation with its recruits. ISo other remedy remains but the spidt of the Go»pel ai">d th'it equality of charity which may be transfused into the most varied forms of labor that meeta v\ith a just retribution.'