Remember Smithfield
It is a rule of thumb in Fleet Street that a strike which is settled is not news, but it will be a very bad thing if the rule is allowed to apply to the strike of Smithfield lorry-drivers, which was settled on Tuesday, only to break out once more in a new form on Wednesday. The labour situation at Smithfield is a subject which requires all the publicity it can get. There is every reason to sift this matter to the bottom, sparing neither the market-workers, their unofficial strike committee, the Transport and General Workers' Union, the employers, nor the Ministry of Labour. No inquiry so far has brought out all the facts of the situation at this plague-spot. The secrecy in which trade union activities and labour relations generally are normally enveloped is dangerous in any case, and particularly now that the connection between the unions and Government is so close ; but in a case like this, in which the public is continually victimised in the course of a complex of disputes which has still not been straightened out, further secrecy is quite intolerable. Indeed, it has become essential in the interests of the men themselves, the majority of whom are no doubt honest and reasonable citizens to whom the constant allegations that they are subject to Communist influence must be irritating to say the least, that the facts should be cleared up. The matter certainly is not settled yet. The claim for a 19s. a week increase for meat transport- drivers is not settled—only handed back to the union. It is quite likely that the unofficial committee which led the strike will remain in existence. The usual cry of " no victimisation " has been raised, and it can only mean that even if deliberate mischief-makers are discovered they will not be removed. To the real victims—the people of London—this particular parrot-cry may sound positively infuriating. But the fact remains that fury neither can nor should settle this matter. It can only be settled by a dispassionate judge- ment, reached after a proper—and public—survey of all the evidence.
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