July 6.
Towarps the close of last year the wave of unrest which could be clearly seen sweeping across the world, disturbing in its course the political, social and economic conditions of almost every civilized country, was regarded as a crisis which need not necessarily recur. Serious as was the state of affairs at the time, the present year has unfortunately brought little ame-boration of a condition of general unrest and anxiety. With the coal strike at an end and another railway strike happily averted, un rest continues. Labour troubles are still rife in London, in Holland, at Marseilles and in Japan. In Australia the regulation of industrial disputes has at length been recognized as requiring con-carted action and as coming within the special province of the Commonwealth Parliament. This decision of the State Premiers is specially interesting when read in conjunction with Mr. Asquith's recent statement on the function of Government in connexion with labour disputes. The Prime Minister, replying to a deputation from Chambers of Commerce on question of unrest, said that is was not the Government's function to assume the post of conciliators in dispute. He went on to say, although not in so many words, that it was the definite duty of the Government to prevent coercion or intimidation by either side, and referred to the success of the Canadian Act which provides for an impartial investigation before, and not after, the declaration of a strike. But Mr. Asquith, in saying that the labour unrest was partly due to the rise in the price of food, omitted to mention other causes, which, though no less real, are less susceptible to Government investigation and legislative remedial) Measures. 4 Very little reflexion is required to show that the present unrest is by no means confined to the ranks of labour and that it cannot be expressed fully in concrete terms of work, wages and want. Toa treat extent its causes are psychological, and that very fact increases enormously the difficulty of dealing with it by means of Royal Commissions, Acts of Parliament or Arbitration Boards.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.