The Manawatu Daily Times The American Experiment

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7284, 11 October 1933, Page 6

The Manawatu Daily Times The American Experiment

Trouble in the American coal industry lias been biGiving ever since the coding system was announced. It has been claimed by the Roosevelt Administration that the battle over the codes of the basic industries was over by the end of August. But in this important one it has gone from the phase of negotiation to strikes and picketing and sabotage, with the possibility of a pitched battle now that State police have taken the Jiekl. Under the code hours were drastically shortened and wages were slightly raised, but the struggle over the “open shop” resulted in stalemate. The principle of collective bargaining was conceded on paper by the operators, as mine owners arc termed in America; but in effect nothing was imposed to prevent conservative industries refusing recognition to genuine trade unions, and not to have scored a victory here is for Labour a defeat. The Roosevelt policy may be defined as Controlled Capitalism. The mine owners seem prepared to submit to this so long as the control is from one source only i.e., the United States Administration. The demand for union recognition holds it in the threat of an admixture of Labour control as well. Whether that is unpalatable to the Roosevelt Administration cannot yet be definitely said, but probably it is. Ihe Industrial Recovery Act attempts to hold an even balance between employer and employed, and it specifically states that the workers shall have the right of collective bargaining, through representatives chosen by themselves. The coal owners arc in reality opposing this by any and every means, and as the United States Administration is not enforcing this vital part of its own measure the working miners have taken up the cudgels in their own behalf. Probably there is more in it than overcoming the bitter opposition of the coal owners to the formation and recognition of national unions.

Close observers of the great American experiment are convinced that Labour is attempting to capitalise it for organisation purposes, and they take it for granted that the Government will attempt to checkmate any such move. No doubt many of Labour’s objectives are also the Administration’s objectives. In defining the “deeper purpose” of the National Recovery Act the President said: “The people, through the Government, are extending as a permanent part of American life and not for just one or two years—their insistence that individuals and associations of individuals shall cease to do many of the things that have been hurting their neighbours in bygone days.” The President is an economic dictator by virtue of the Act, and is unlikely to stand by and see his functions usurped by those whom he is seeking to benefit, especially when their methods trend towards an outbreak of civil war. The August strikes in the Pennsylvania soft coal fields took both. Washington and the general public by surprise ,and were regarded as a serious menace to the entire recovery effort. Their present violent development—showing the length to which Labour will go in its determination to use the President and his Act to seize and solidify whatever advantage is to be gained from the present unsettlement of all industry—is the most disconcerting thing that could have happened to him. His authority has been challenged. Where he intended to promote harmony bloodshed has threatened, and more.