The Press. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1913 THE "I.W.W.'' AND THE FEDERATION.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14841, 5 December 1913, Page 6

The Press. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1913 THE "I.W.W.'' AND THE FEDERATION.

Tlie Wellington Defence Committee have shown in plain and convincing language why at this stage there can be no compromise with the Federation of Labour simply because the Federation is an anarchical body, a standing menace to all orderly and law-abiding citizens. It organised a revolution against . settled government, public freedom, and the' rights of private property, and the community has very rightly decided that the revolution must be suppressed. The Federation started proceedings by breaking agreements and breaking the law, and their leaders openly advocated "sabotage"—that is to say, criminal violence and injury to the property of those who refused to submit to their domination. Having thoroughly aroused the law-abiding portion of the community and compelled the citizens at great self-eacrifice to protect, themselves, the Federation now finds itself beaten, and the squeal for "arbitration" is merely an impudent attempt to cover up the real character of the enterprise which has so deplorably failed. The manifesto issued by the Wellington Defence Committee states quite correctly that the Federation of Labour is either an offshoot or ah imitation of the notorious "1.W.W." of America. The preambles to the constitutions of the two bodies are almost the same. Both open with the postulate "The working class and the em- " ploying class have nothing in "common." The "I.W.W-" wns started in 1905 by a band of Chicago anarchists who conceived the idea of penetrating the Trades Unions and using them for the purpose of carrying out their plan of eventually bursting up society and seizing the means of production, distribution, and exchange.' In or about 1909, one or two men holding 1.W.W.. doctrinereached New Zealand, and having converted-three or four of the old Miners' .Federation to their views, • the nucleus of the present Federation 6f Labour was formed at Runanga, on the West Coast of this island. The notorious Mr Hickey was one of the pioneers in the movement, and spent his time first in one coal mine and. then .i n another, fomenting trouble and gathering adherents. From the very beginning it was instilled into the workers that they were to treat agreements as wastepaper and to use the strike as their weapon in the "class war." Withthis end in view, the miners' unions were induced to cancel their registration Under the Arbitration Act, so that they might be able to strike with impunity. The very body whose leaders are now whining for "arbitration," set out with the fixed idea; that arbitration was to be got rid of at all hazards? Then, as now. the poor misguided workers were. told that "strikes, " whether won or lost, are a benefit to "tho working class"—a mischievous lie, as thousands of men are now finding to their cost. The members of the Federation were actually urged-to go on strike as a sort of disciplinary'exercise—"to develop their revolutionary "energy," "to drill and school ihem "for the revolution." "Get the strike "habit and keep striking," said the Federation's official journal on one occasion.

..'.- Too long has this mischief-making organisation, largely engineered "by alien agitators for their own benefit, been allowed to mislead the more ignorant class of workers, ;and hatch its conspiracies, to overthrow honest industry and confiscate the fruit of other's toil. Now that so many sacrifices, have been made to throw off its hateful tyranny no quarter must be shown to it." The idea of going to arbitration with such a lawless organisation, or entering into agreements with leaders whose boast it is that agreements are. only of use to gull those weak enough to believe in them, would not only bo an act of supreme folly—it would be a crime against tho . community.