There has been but little change in the industrial situation since last week except that more men have been put to work and a considerable number of foreigners have returned to the district and many strangers have been imported to take the place of those driven out. Things are gradually getting back to the before the riot status, but there are still mutterings of discontent and there will continue to be until something definite is done to set them at rest. The good of the district both from the standpoint of the companies involved and the community generally demands an immediate adjustment of this troublesome question which has been more or less of a handicap to the peace of the district for many years. Unless this is done the fires of discontent will merely smolder and at the first opportunity will again burst into flame.
For ten years or more there has been an antagonism between the companies and the men of the district which is wrong from every standpoint. The cause of this unfortunate condition of affairs should be removed. The fault does not belong to any one interest in particular. Both sides of the controversy are in a measure guilty. A possible solution which we think is worthy of earnest consideration is at present being worked on. It is in substance as follows:
That a committee of representative men from the mines be selected. Representative men implies men who have been citizens of the district long enough to become thoroughly established here and who are big enough to give and take and to discuss the question in a calm, and dispassionate manner. These men are to have a conference and make an effort to arrive at some definite basis of settlement. The officials of the companies should have a similar conference and then the two should get together, lay the cards on the table without the "hole card" being hidden, and discuss the whole situation freely and frankly from every angle. If an amicable arrangement can be worked out, then a public meeting should be held and the basis of settlement made known publicly. If this can be done it will solve the industrial problem in this district.
This method of settlement is probably a little unusual, but it must be considered that these are unusual times. This country is at war and this will be realized in all that the word WAR implies before another six months have passed over our heads. This being true it is the patriotic duty of every citizen to pour oil on the troubled waters of the industrial disturbance that at present exists is the lead industry which is so vital to the successful conduct of the war.
There is no good reason why the mutual interest that should exist here between all interested should not be recognized. Stubborness either on the part of the companies or the men, will in the long run, prove disastrous. The men should recognize this as well as the companies. Human nature is pretty much the same the world over. Men can be fired and blacklisted by the wholesale, and new blood imported to take their places, but unless the cause of their discontent is in some measure adjusted, sooner or later the new men will start where the old ones left off and the fight will be on anew.
One man, for whose judgment we have the utmost respect, suggested this week that the foreigners be allowed to return to their old jobs, no matter in what capacity they had been employed, but that all new aliens employed be kept on the shovels only. This, he thought, would be agreeable to the majority of the men in the district.
There is at present a shortage of labor throughout the whole of the United States and this shortage will become vastly worse when the men who are now drafted, are called to the colors.
As evidence of the immense shortage of labor we quote herewith a statement of the urgent demand for men in the ship yards at Portland, Oregon:
THOUSANDS OF MEN AT HIGH WAGES CAN FIND EMPLOYMENT
The secretary of the State Editorial Association of Portland, Oregon, informs us that the building of steel and wooden ships for the war is seriously crippled through lack of labor.
Latest authentic information gathered points to the necessity of employing at once nearly 12,000 men in the shipbuilding business at Portland, and between two and three thousand in the yards outside.
With contracts already let and certain to be placed in the near future, it is stated by the shipbuilders that from 20,000 to 50,000 men should be employed by the close of this year or early next year. The work is on hand to give employment and the demand for ships is growing greater every day.
The development of an industry of this magnitude so suddenly has resulted in drawing practically all of the available men within immediate reach, and already the shipbuilders of the state are urging laborers from all parts of the West to take positions in their plants.
Appeals are coming from national officials and all the leading business men of the East for all seaboard states to concentrate their supreme energies upon the program of building ships. This is declared to be the greatest duty confronting the nation today and on every hand it is admitted frankly, despite the optimistic statements of the position of the allied forces, that unless ships are built by America, at a (pace) absolutely beyond the present program the effectiveness of the United States in the European War will be largely reduced. Germany is counting implicity upon destroying more ships than are built to prevent America from participating extensively in the war. The submarine program is making more rapid progress than the shipbuilding program. For these reasons the federal government is putting the building of ships as the primary patriotic duty of the people of the country, and urging every person who can aid in the work to take it up with as much reverence and as much sense of duty as if they were enlisting in the army.
America's food, munitions, arms and and men cannot reach Europe without an adequate supply of ships. Best authorities declare these should be ships built of steel and wood as rapidly as the forces of the country can be marshalled for the work.
In the emergency every man who has any mechanical or artisan skill whatever is being adapted to some part of ship construction, wherever he desires to work. It has been necessary to teach labor to do classes of work it has never undertaken before. All the facilities for such instruction are being provided by the ship yards, the government, and state, and men are having an opportunity to take up lines of employment never presented before at the best wages that have been known in the Pacific Northwest and perhaps the country.
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