PERSISTENCE OF CHARACTER.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sir,—A curious instance of the above has lately appeared in an Indian paper. A week or so ago some eight hundred signallers of one of the great Indian lines—the Great Indian Peninsular Railway—went out on strike on forty-eight hours' notice. The railway administration by great efforts managed after a few days to get traffic into working order again. The general opinion of the Press has been that, whatever were the merits of the dispute, the signallers put themselves in the wrong by going out on such short notice, and that the railway administration deserved credit for the way they faced and overcame the difficulties so caused. However, the point to note is that one of the ablest and most respected of the native papers in an article which I enclose winds up with the follow- ing naive remarks :— "Though we wish the Company all suocess in their attempt at resistance, we are afraid its line of opposition will be scarcely deemed justifiable. The present method gives rise to serious appre- hensions about the public safety. We wish the Company 'would have hit upon some safer and securer measure of disappointing the strikers. Whether promises given to strikers with a view to avert the imminent crisis fall under the class of contracts made under undue influence or coercion we do not know, yet it is much to be wished that the law could empower the employers to concede for the moment to the urgent demands of the employed, only to get some time, say a month, to find other workmen and then to dismiss without ceremony the headstrong strikers without fulfilling the extorted promises.'
Possibly the writer might say in justification that a great Englishman some hundred and forty-two years ago did quite as bad a thing,—i.e., when Clive deceived Omichund by preparing and showing him a false treaty.—I am, Sir, ctc., B. M.
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