May 4.
The strike has been the industrial equivalent of war in international polities. It is a weapon which has frequently been used to good effect, frequently abused. The mark of sound industrial organization is per~ ceived when the strike can be relegated far into the background and disputes settled by the process Jof negotiation between the representatives of employer and employed. Of the modern perversion of strike weapon, the "stay in strike", ttle good can be said. It is to be hoped that when present malaise has yielded to commonsense treat~ ment it will be abandoned. London, as well as certain counties, is at the moment experiencing serious inconvenience by reason of the strike of businen. The London dispute is apart from the "provincial" trouble. The busman in. certain parts of Eastern England have been on strike for some time in the hope of improving their wage prospects. The London busman, employees of the London Passenger Transport Board which is a public utility organization, controlling the tube railways, trams, underground railways and buses, are striking after due notice to secure a modification of their working hours. Broadly their demand is for a 7% hour day. Busmen in. London are second only to the Police in public estimation. Their grievances, if well-founded, are bound tohave sympathy, but it by no means clear that they have been wisely led.
The Government has taken the proper step of setting up-a Court of inquiry so that the ublic may for itself determine the {issues in the dispute. As so often happens each tale is good till the Lord Ashfield the ehlet of the London Passenger Transport Board, asserts that the busman's demands would involve additional expenditure of £600,000, "if applied to ther alone and, as it would be impossible to deny similar relief to employees throughout the Board's service, the total cost would be about 21,600,000. The Board has formally" announced -that its resources do not permit it to entertain so heavy an increase in its costs, 'The argument that busman should be protected against undue fatigue or strain will be' much appreciated ju London, where the speeding up of bus and other traffic has won for the workers considerable sympathy which is not entirely altruistic, for the fear of accidents due to tired ness in the driver's seat or on the conductor's stand is contributory to it, The claim for a 7% hour day should be studied with the knowledge that the present 8 hour day includes the time taken for garage ing, signing on and off, travelling to duty and that actually the work ing time amounts only to 6% hours, Whether that constitutes an undue strain Is a matter for expert opinion decide. Tt does not seem excess sive to the layman, The London us men, moreover, are wellspald comparison with conditions elsewhere. They have many amenities—annual holidays, provision for welfare work and reiizing pensions ona scale not yet attained by their fetlow-workers in. other ém-ployment. The Board, indeed, has {aken its obligations as a public utility organization seriously and has managed to create the impression—it nothing more—that It has high standard of contentment in its service. Nevertheless the men have pressed the strike threat home and it remains to be seen whether they will succeed, If they do, then it must be assumed that the public will have to pay in the forma of increased bus fares which may easily bbe a serious affliction to a section of the community east abe to bear ward the disturbers; He will, no doubt, feel that the Board should have averted the strike but he will not be impervious to argument on the point, for he, can shrewdly assess values if pi/perly expounded to him, Nowadays. trade unions, have no Jack of expert guidance on matters economic. In so far as this dispute turns on the economic factor the busman cannot be misinformed.
Either they are right in the contention regarding the strain of hours or they are imbued with the pellet that, the Board's resources can be further tapped for their benet, The general trend of industrial unrest in Great Britain suggests that, any exaggerated sense of. the profits accruing from recovery of trade is prevalent. The trade unionist. may be quite fairly determined see that he is not deprived of the benefits from this improvement, but if he goes further and bases his claims on extravagant calculations due no doubt to somewhat rash advertisement of the' present "boom"—he will be riding" for: a fall, If the busman's advisers could pause to consider what the failure of the recent Government Joan implies, they might be less expansive in their expectations. Perhaps the Court of Inquiry will assist in throwing light on the subject. No doubt Labour feels that, having come through the lean years at the cost of refraining from doing more than hang on to such work as was going, it should now start to reconsolidate its bargaining posi tion. That may or may not be the underlying principle of these various disputes, In any case it seems unfortunate that progress achieved in the establishment: of machinery for collective bargaining should not be able to eliminate the strike threat, except as a last desperate resource, There is no sign of desperation in the bus dispute, The employer is sonable, the men, admittedly not badly paid, The public will surely be aggrieved if it has thus to be inconvenienced to repair defects in trade union diplomacy. That will bode no good to the busman, Tym National Eeonomle Counc in Nanking is sending five experts to Japan to study river conservancy work, in-addition to those who have already been dispatched to America and Burope for similar purposes, There Is an. uncomfortable feeling that the strike has been pre imitated in the belief that, coming at Coronation. time, it may effactively force the hands of the Board. Unless the strikers. can rebut that charge they are likely 0 to harden public opinion against them "that. their case may. be seriously prejudiced. The Lon doner is a resourceful creature; his convenience is disturbed he is ready to apply suitable remedies. but he does not bear goodwill to-
'Tue discovery recently of corpses of strong and well-built male adults in the Haiho River 4s puzzling resid-cents of Tientsin and the police making investigations into' the mat-for. More than 25 bodies have so far found, including Ave on April 25 and 26, "AN apparently had been mutilated before being thrown into the river. A year ago more than 400 corpses. ware reported to have been found in the Haiho River and wild mous were el related about their origin,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.