HARVESTER STRIKE
Extract
MR JUDKINS CONDEMNATION
In the course of a lecture on “The Christ Spirit
in
Industrialism” at Wesley Church yesterday afternoon, Mr WH
Judkins began by
showing how, in the earlier days of capital and labour, the employers
had used the
coercion of starvation to sweat and ill-treat their employees.
That was all happily
over, but there was a danger that coercion and tyranny were still
extant - the
coercion of the union. A few days ago one of the leading members
of the workers
workers’ party had given advice to the harvester strikers. Because it
did not fit in
with the mood of the moment he was called a traitor. The Labour men
talked of the glorious
brotherhood of man. That was quite right. But what did their
organisation say?
“If a man won’t join the union, duck him in the river, hide his
tools, cut
off his food supply, make his life hell on earth. No means
employed to bring about
the success of the workers movement is immoral.” That was the
conception and
definition of brotherhood and morality. The doctrine of might was
a doctrine of
unreason. The only reason brought forward for the coercion of the
non-unionist was
that he “shared in the benefits obtained by the union.” True
brotherhood would be glad to see all men so sharing.
(Applause) The
principle of the strike was unchristian and unreasonable.
What a
situation had we reached when labour and capital were so
bitterly
opposed. Why should there be any antagonism? The Christ-spirit
and true spirit of
brotherhood were the only corrective. On the part of the
employer, good wages, good
conditions of labour and good hours: and on the part of the employed,
good work, the best
work possible, and not a beggarly measuring out of labour, as was now
unhappily the case.
The bricklayers must not lay more than a certain amount of bricks. Was
that the right
spirit? Democracy might be made a movement which should mean
brotherhood as well as only
speaking of brotherhood, but there was a present danger that would
degenerate into a mere
wild struggle for self.
From THE ARGUS 13th March 1911 page 6
