THE FREIGHT HANDLERS

The walkout of 2000 freight handlers and longshoremen here in Boston, bringing with it the threat of a serious food shortage, is but another example of the helplessness of the country to deal with industrial disputes. Obviously Boston cannot put up with a food shortage, and our first concern must be the settlement of this particular strike. The freight handlers held a strategic position similar to that of the coal miners. It is the public which will suffer from this strike, and the public must be protected.

But the great pity is that today strikes such as this was hastily patched up without any provisions to avoid future difficulties of the same sort. The public is temporarily shocked, some one produces a makeshift never based on a scientific investigation, peace is proclaimed (but a peace which is merely an armed trace), the public sits back, breathes a sigh of relief and forgets all about it. Industrial Conferences sit at Washington, break up and sit again, but leave us no nearer a definite industrial code or method of settling strikes than we were before.

The truth is that the public consciences has not awakened to the need for constructive measures. There are denunciations of employees on the one hand which are only equaled by denunciations of employers on the other. Yet, with the great amount of industrial unrest now existing, some permanent settlement should be uppermost on the nation's conscience. There are utilities in which strikes cannot be tolerated. But the employees must be given some new guarantees if we are to take away their right, to strike. Above all, there is the need for a sound industrial code, applicable to the whole country, and for immediate machinery to decide disputes fairly and enforce decisions. If the nation has not demanded results, it is vital that it should do so. There has been enough blundering about in the dark.