The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, October 28, 1890. A FOOLISH MANIFESTO.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 524, 28 October 1890, Page 2

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

Tuesday, October 28, 1890. A FOOLISH MANIFESTO.

Be just and foar not; Let all the ends thou aim’at at be thy country’s, Thy God's, and truth’s.

When the employers, with the one exception, declined to attend the Conference invited by Government, we pointed out the want of wisdom that was shown in adopting this unconclliatory attitude. No harm, we urged, could result from the employers meeting the labor representatives and talking the matter over with them, while there was a possibility that some and perhaps much good would be the outcome. We went further and said that party or class feeling should have a secondary place to patriotism, and that even successinstarvingthestrikeis intosub mission would by no means solve a grave problem that thoughtful men could see must still arise. We have now the satisfaction of knowing that the most stolid and ably-conducted Conservative paper in Australia — the Sydney Morning Herald —adopted precisely the same line of reasoning in regard to the proposed Conference in New South Wales. The Herald, which of course condemned the strike from the beginning, has its blessings converted into curses by the super cilious employees’ manifesto, and deals a stinging blow to the authors of the effusion. It sets out by asking whether the employers are indeed resposible for the manifesto, saying it is curious to know how far this document really represents the views of the. employers. “Are, for example,” says the Herald, “ the employers as a whole fairly represented by the tone of rather ludicrous superciliousness, expressed in questionable English, which we find in the sentence explaining the good deal of misapprehension existing on the question in the words : ‘ Comparatively few people have the practical knowledge and the opportunities for closely following the course of events essential to a proper understanding of the present position of affairs.’ This practical knowledge, it would seem, is confined to the employers and their unassuming penman. The employers at any rate hold this view, inasmuch as they tell us that in addition to being humane and reasonable, they (z.k the employers themselves) ‘also have knowledge gained by bitter experience, and are eminently practical in the view they take of the present strike.’ This may be so, but if the conflict lasts, as it is likely to last should the harsh and arrogant sentiments expressed in this manifesto be allowed to rule the situation, we are all in a fair way of gaining practical knowledge by the same bitter experience which has lead the employers to the wisdom of which they are so conscious. They repeat over and over again, or their writer repeats for them, the declaration that ‘nothing could be gained by going into conference.’ The reason for believing that nothing could be gained is the stern determination of the employers that nothing is to be conceded. They say ‘ It would be dishonest and misleading to pretend that the employers ate 'prepared to arrive at any compromise that may have the effect of wholly, or even partly, annulling the calm and deliberate decisions of the Associated Employers of Australasia.’ The ‘ Associated Employers of Australasia ’ having spoken, all argument, negotiation, and compromise end, and there is nothing for the other side but to meekly accept the autocratic decision. Lest this point may be one of those about which ‘ a good deal of misapprehension exists,’ we quote anothersentence in .which, the employers are made to say, 'they are not prepared to make any concessions on the principles embodied in the Sydney Conference resolutions, and therefore it would be .useless to enter into a conference with a view of discussing points upon which they have a fixed determination to yield nothing.’ This implies that in a dispute, the consequences of which are involving the whole community in loss and privation and difficulty, it is within the power and the right of one side to settle the whole question as it pleases, and to announce the determination to ‘yield nothing.’ This may prove the employers’ freedom from ‘hollow sentimental notions,’ but it scarcely illustrates the claim to be 1 humane and reasonable,’ which they so confidently put forward.” Our Sydney contemporary goes on calmly to pitilessly expose the weakness of the employers in trying to come the foot on neck bounce, and predicts that if such a manifesto truly represents the spirit and feeling by which the employers as a body are animated towards the men, it will be so much, the worse for that body, and they will have reason to fear that public opinion to which the manifesto appeals. We have alluded to the article mainly on account of its source. The writer recognises what so many writers, blinded by class feelings, have failed to see, or have professed ignorance of, that no mockery in the form of conventionalities should be allowed to perpetuate the misery and loss that must intensify in proportion to the prolongation of the strike. The terrible blunder made by the strike leaders does not efface the fact that the majority of the men have acted purely from a feeling of loyalty, which entitles them to tespect and sympathy, If the employers are wise, nO .v that they have virtually won the battle,

they will use every effort towards reconciliation, and seek to efface any rankling there maybe. If this is done, the strike lesson may be well worth its cost.