An industrial conflict, full of lessons for everybody, - began in
Queensland last Saturday. About 11,000 men employed upon the State-owned railways were dismissed. by the Labour Government. The railwaymen had refused to handle goods despatched from .a sugar mill where there Was a strike. Mr. McCormack, the Labour Premier, says that he is fighting for "constitutional government against mob rule." The strikers are led by extremists who induced them to ignore the advice of their own union officials, yet now the railwaymen have the support of the Australian Railway Union, which has declared that if necessary it will inaugurate a transport blockade of Queensland. A volunteer motor transport service has been improvised at Brisbane and workers seem to have been conveyed to and from their homes in outlying districts with some delay, it is true, but on the whole effectively. The mails to and from New South Wales are also carried regularly by road.
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