The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, September 11, 1890. THE STRIKE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 505, 11 September 1890, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday, September 11, 1890. THE STRIKE.

Be just and fear not; Lot all the ends thou aim'st at be thy oountry’a, Thy God's, and truth's.

On Saturday we pointed put how foolish it is for any section of the Press, whether its sympathies lean to the side of Labor or to Capital, to seek in any way to aggravate the present difficulty, when the Press might do so much in the direction of advising the withdrawal from a struggle which is ruinous to both sides. Our remarks were mainly founded on an article which appeared in the Hawke’s Bay Herald, saying that Unionists must be starved into an attitude which Capitalists consider reasonable, and also taunting Unionists with discovering that their position was untenable because they had the good sense to express a desire for mediation. Now we are glad to observe that the H.B. Herald has in its turn adopted a more reasonable attitude, and as there is no doubt it represents a strong body of employers its articles may be taken as indicative of the feeling on the Capitalist side. “We have no desire,” says our Napier contemporary, “to irritate, nor to dilate further upon the mistake which even the most headstrong among the unionists must now see has been made. It is, we think, better to conclude with a suggestion as to how the mistake may be rectified as far as possible. Let the unionists, seeing that the strike never ought to have extended to New Zealand, terminate it as soon as possible. They say they have no quarrel with the Company, nor complaints on the score of wages or hours. Let them, therefore, resume work, and put an end to the dreadful state of things now existing. By so doing they will not only benefit themselves and the country generally, but even from a strategical point of view they will be acting wisely, for they will be the better able to assist their fellowunionists across the water. We commend this view to the elder men among the unionists, trusting they will do their utmost in favor of a plan which provides not only for an honorable retreat to the actual combatants, but that will save thousands of innocent people from undeserved suffering, and yet enable the unionists, if they so desire, to fight the union battle in Australia in the most effective way—by furnishing supplies to those to whom such a way of retreat as is proposed here does not seem at present open.” The suggestion bears out our contention that there can never be much sympathy between men whose only link is metal that is of no value without labor. The New Zealand capitalists, on the one hand, say let us be relieved of this quarrel, while the Labor party has said, let us take this quarrel upon ourselves—our brother’s affair is ours. That is precisely where the mistake was made in the first place. The leaders in the movement should have sought to keep New Zealand free from a trouble to which it was really no party, but having once made the call, the men were in honor bound to respond tc it. Still their having done so is no reason why every effort should not be made to com# to some understanding even now,