The Sydney correspondent of the Times sends a long despatch,
dated March 24th, on the New South Wales strikes. The various strikes cannot be classified under one head. Only one was directly organized as a move in the political party game, and there have been no appeals for "sympathetic" action in other spheres of industry. The only common feature in all is the attitude not only of the inconvenienced public, but of the press—" the feeling amounting often almost to sympathy for the strikers, that the complaints of the men are justified, or at least excusable, however wrong- beaded has been their action." The Ferry strike, believed to be an attack on the award of a Wages Board before it was issued, is denounced for its callousness and impudence, but there is no sympathy for the companies. Advanced Labour politicians will base a plea for nationalization on these disturbances, which, in the view of the writer, are seriously threatening the stability of the Australian arbitration system. In evidence of the growing discontent with the Wages Boards, the correspondent quotes a " dangerously symptomatic " conversation recently held between one of the Ministers, Mr. Carmichael, and representatives of the ferry hands : " ' If you do not accept the Wages Board's decision,' said Mr. Carmichael, 'you may as well throw the arbitration system overboard.' Throw it,' was the rejoinder; ' we won't throw a lifebuoy after it " The moderate Labour Party supports the system wholeheartedly, but it is disliked by reactionary Liberals just as much as by the advanced Labour men.
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