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OBSERVATIONS ON THE INFLUENCE OF STRIKES 

 UPON REAL WAGES. 



By R. M. Johnston, F.L.S. 



At the present moment in Europe, America, and Austral- 

 asia, many industries are paralysed and the well - being or 

 comfort of thousands of families are more or less sacrificed 

 by organised or enforced idleness involving a considerable 

 diminution in the creation of commodities or real wealth. 

 These Strikes, as they are termed, are entered upon by 

 thousands of honest, hardworking, peace-loving men. In 

 loyalty to their order and to their recognised leaders, they 

 display many characteristics which cannot but excite some 

 degree of wonder and admiration ; for this voluntary 

 suspension of the means of livelihood to them not only 

 involves unflinching self-denial of ordinary comforts, but also 

 the facing of a terrible risk that in. the dark, prolonged 

 struggle, the lives of those that make life dear to them may 

 be crushed and overwhelmed by want and misery. 



Facing such risks, it is only natural that the ordinarily 

 peaceable man should become restless and excited, nay, violent, 

 when the campaign of self-sacrifice and loyalty to their fellows 

 seems about to be jeopardised by the opposing action of those 

 who seem to them to be lawless renegades of their order. 



Those of the community whose interests are in conflict or 

 are not supposed to be immediately affected by a combined 

 strike — whether for shorter hours, resistance to the lowering 

 of the rate of wages, or the raising of wages — may be surprised 

 and may condemn "unionists" on Strike for violently opposing 

 the filling up of their places by so-called outsiders, freemen, 

 non-unionists or blacklegs, but a little consideration from the 

 standpoint of " Put yourself in his place " will reveal much 

 that tends to palliate their modes of action or behaviour, if 

 it does not exonerate or justify them. Be it remembered 

 that their hope of success entirely depends upon their loyalty 

 to each other under the most severe strain to human beings, 

 viz., privation and misery ; that their battle squares, if 

 broken entails defeat ; that the breaking away of any of 

 their number or the intrusion of opposing outsiders destroys 

 all their hopes, make their prolonged sacrifice of no avail, 

 and leaves them in a much worse position than at first. 



On the other hand (making allowance for mistakes in judg- 

 ment), there is much that is admirable in the sympathetic, 

 sacrificing support of brother workmen in other trades or 



