TO BREAK A STRIKE

Few developments of the last century have been more extraordinary than that of strikes. Originally a protest against grossly unfair exploitation of the laboring man, they have passed into the field of politics. The general strike was used to considerable effect in France at the time of the trouble over "Syndicalism" and somewhat later in Russia, also for political purposes. Now there is a strike in South Africa which appears to be leading into yet newer fields.

This South African strike, centering about Johannesburg, has almost assumed the proportions of civil war. Armed commandos of strikers are continually coming into conflict with government troops, and are trying to cut railroad communications. Similar commandos of citizens are being recruited to fight the strikers. The strike is unique in that for the first time airplanes have been used to quell the disturbance. Bombs have been dropped on commandos of strikers to excellent effect, and provisions and ammunition have been dropped to besieged police. This appears to be one of the best strike breaking methods yet devised, for by it, always providing it is used rightly, only the iniquitous are injured. The planes are available only to the government, so that they cannot be used by the insurgents. Heretofore, the only way of dispersing armed bands of strikers has been by the use of troops, and in the pitched battle which invariably ensued numbers of the soldiers had to be killed,--an un- necessary bloodshed. Now when a commando is discovered, an airplane can drop bombs on it without endangering the life of anyone except the strikers. Of course, such a method could not be used in a strike in a city, but for a disturbance such as this in South Africa it seems to be ideal, and if it succeeds in breaking the strike it will have won its spurs with distinction