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Page 12
There had been several questions in dispute between the miners and the
owners, and these had been referred to the Arbitration Court some time
before the arrival of the new Australian miners. The result, while it
favored the Union in some respects, favored the Company in others, and
this fact was used by the new-comers to convince the older hands that the
Court had been unfair, and that they could secure much better terms for
themselves if they would cease work, and so inflict immense loss by
permitting the lower levels of the mine to become flooded. After a few
months the Union decided to take advantage of the provision of the law
which enabled any registered Union to withdraw its registration at six
months' notice. When the time had expired, the Union repeated the demand
which had been refused by the Court, and on the refusal of the Company to
agree, a strike was at once declared, and the whole of the miners ceased
work. This had the effect, within a very short time, of rendering all the
deeper levels of the mine unworkable. Close to the mine was a prosperous
little town occupied chiefly by the miners and their families, most of the
houses being the property of the mining company, and the men continued to
occupy the houses while the strike was in progress. Other miners were
found who were ready to take their places, but the men in possession
refused to move out, and threatened with violence any miners that should
attempt to work the mine. The men who had been prepared to work, finding
this to be the position, withdrew. As there was no actual violence shown,
there seemed to be a difficulty in the way of any interference by the
Government: so several months passed, during which the mine lay idle while
the miners on strike continued to occupy the houses and pay the very
moderate rents demanded from employees of the company. This they were able
to do partly from their savings, partly from the sympathetic contributions
from Australia, and partly by some of the miners having scattered over the
country and got work on the farms, and throwing their earnings into the
common fund.
After repeated appeals by the mine-owners to the Government, an
arrangement was made that the Company should employ miners willing to
become members of a new Union registered under the Arbitration statute,
and that the Government should send a police force sufficient to protect
these in working the mine, and also to enforce the judgment of the local
court in dispossessing the occupants of the houses belonging to the
Company. An attempt was made by the strikers to defy this police force and
prevent the new Union from working the mine; but when most of the new
unionists had been sworn in as special constables, and a number of the
militant strikers had been arrested, the others saw that they could not
continue the struggle, and within a week or two abandoned the district,
giving place to the members of the arbitration Union in both the mine and
town.
Thus the first strike organized by the "Federation of Labor" in New
Zealand resulted in a failure, but the miners thus defeated and driven
from the little town that had been their home, in many cases for a good
many years, were naturally embittered by their failure, and became an
element of mischief in other districts, and especially in the coal mines,
to which they turned when they found it hard to obtain employment in any
of the gold mines.
The Australian Federation of Labor and its branch in New Zealand fully
appreciated the fact that their first attempt to establish a system of
Unionism opposed to the one recognized by the law, having proved a
failure, it was necessary either to give up the attempt altogether or to
make it more deliberately and on a much wider scale. The method they
adopted was one that did credit to their foresight and determination. The
Australian Federation is, and has always been, highly socialistic in its
policy, and latterly its leaders have adopted and preached syndicalism, as
promising to give the workers the control of society. New Zealand, alone
among self-governing countries, having struck at the very root of their
policy by trying to substitute a statute and a Court for the will of the
associated workers, was a very tempting country for syndicalism. An island
country which, owing to climate and soil, was specially suited for the
production of all kinds of agricultural wealth beyond the needs of its own
people, must depend on free access to the ports of other countries. This,
it seemed plain, could be prevented by well managed syndicalism. It would
be only necessary to organize the seamen who worked the vessels that kept
the smaller harbors of such a country in touch with the larger ports at
which the ocean going ships loaded and unloaded; and to organize also the
stevedores at the larger ports. The bitterness of feeling that had
followed the destruction of the Waihi Union, and the loss to its members
not only of a good many months of good wages but of the homes they and
their families had occupied for years, was a valuable asset in such a
campaign. At first, of course, some of the working classes blamed the
agents of "The Federation of Labor" who were responsible for the
disastrous strike, but it was not difficult to turn attention from the
past failure of a single strike, to the certain success that must attend a
great syndical strike that would involve all the industries of the
country. Most, indeed nearly all, of the disappointed Waihi strikers were
ready to join with enthusiasm in carrying out the plans of The Federation,
and removed to the places where they could be most effective in preparing
the way for what they looked upon as a great revenge. Thus they either
joined the old Unions at the principal ports, especially Auckland and
Wellington, or formed new Unions, no longer registered under the
Arbitration statute, but openly affiliated to The Federation of Labor,
which had been established in New Zealand, but was really a branch of the
Australian Federation. The four principal ports of New Zealand, indeed the
only ports much frequented by the large export and import vessels, are
Auckland, Wellington, Lyttleton, and Dunedin, the two first named being in
the north island, and the other two in the south. Auckland is considerably
the largest city in The Dominion, containing at least 25,000 more
inhabitants than Wellington, which is not only the capital of the
Dominion, but also the great distributing centre for the South island and
the southern part of the North island, at the southern extremity of which
it is situated. The remarkable situation of Auckland, on a very narrow
isthmus about a hundred and eighty miles from the northern point of the
country, is no doubt largely responsible for the growth of the city, which
is the chief centre of the young manufactures of the Dominion, and the
largest port of export for almost all the country produces, except wool
and mutton, which are mainly raised in the South island. Thus it happens
that Auckland and Wellington are at present the chief shipping ports of
the Dominion, and it was to them that the Federation of Labor turned its
chief attention when its leaders had definitely decided to undertake the
campaign of syndicalism against the system of arbitration which had
prevailed for sixteen years.
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