The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1912. LABOUR AND ITS LEADERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1381, 6 March 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1912. LABOUR AND ITS LEADERS.

The Federation of Labour is certainly doing its best to'open the eyes of the workers to the harm that is being done to tho true interests of the wage-earner by the men in charge of "the Labour movement." Wellington people have not forgotten nor —whatever some anxious political intriguers may say—forgiven tho intervention of the Federation in the recent tramways strike; nor is it in the least likely that in the Auckland trouble the Federation will fail to fall heavily into discredit. We are quite able to understand what they feel who say, and believe, that one worker's or one union's quarrel is the quarrel of every wage-earner—to understand, while at the same time realising how wrong and how injurious to the worker such a doctrine is. But we greatly doubt whether many, of the Labour leaders believe in that doctrine at all; most of them advocate it simply for their own ends, in order to keep brisk their trade of agitation. That the workers, the organised workers, are in bad hands, is a truth to_ which there are Labour men of prominence ready to bear witness. In Dunodin last week, for example, Mr. D. Morxaety, whom everyone knows to be a very strenuous fighter for the men in the union he leads, and whose care for Labour interests is beyond question, said a few plain things about some of tho Labour leaders in this part of the Dominion. "These so-called Labour leaders," he said, "were prepared to use tho 'workers in every conceivable way for ono purpose, and that was to get into Parliament," and "he was satisfied that when tho workers were a little more educated tho so-called leaders of Labour, v/howere exploiting Labour, would have a very small hearing." In the pasb the agitators who, in the colloquial tongue, "live on the giimo," have been able to persuade a majority of tho unionists that those who criticise Labour leaders are onnmios of the workingman, but this little trick has been played too often. It has been found put, like Sin Joseph AVahd's very similar trick of representing his opponents as enemies of the country.

In the meantime, as wo, have said, the Federation of Labour is helping to educate the wovko.i , up to an understanding of the. charlatanry behind "the Labour movement''' that imposes upon him. The threat of a general strike made at the time of the f ram-

ways trouble, has been repealed in Auckland by the Federation's leaders. This js a gnorl thins because everybody is realising I hat general strikes never succeed and not only never really benefit the wnge-earnrrs, but, injure them ns thn most easily injurnd arc.tion of l;hn cornrnutiily. Iliat Uio tiu'eat Jans bees Biada so

quickly after the collapse of the Brisbane strike is evidence that, the strategy of the strife-mongers in industry is a very limited strategy. They rely upon the power of a foolish idea, decorated with violent language, to hypnotise men into forgetting facts tiiat are plain and notorious ; and they imagine that the public as a whole can ha coerced by threats even after the public's hostility to coercion has been fortified by a striking example of its power to resist coercion. In Auckland, as in AVcllington recently, and as in Brisbane also, the syndicalists have been relying on heated rhetoric. "The employers," shouted one reckless agitator in Auckland on Sunday, "were now taking up the position that the workers either had to sink their manhood or sec their children starve." Sinking their manhood meant accepting 4s. a week more wages. "The working men of Auckland," he added, "were determined that this crime should not be committed," and then there were references to "the bar of public opinion" and all the rest of it. Although there may bo here and | there a Socialist who honestly believes that when a strike takes place it is the sacred duty of every wageearner to back the strike whatever the merits of the dispute may be, the mass of mankind know that this is a preposterous idea. The syndicalist doctrine has no real hold on any appreciable section of unionists, as the failure of every general strike clearly demonstrates. A unionist is always a man, and a husband and father first, and a unionist second. The syndicalist doctrine can never succeed until men generally place their theories before their membership of the human race. "Why," the average unionist asks as soon as the first heat of strike enthusiasm passes, "why should I punish my wife nnd children because there is a dispute in another trade in a distant ylico, or even in this town of my own ? I won't."

In their sano moments even some of those who have worked with the "general strike" advocates realise the hopeless folly of syndicalism. Mr.. Walter T. Mills, for example, who spoke from the same cart-tail as theFederation agitators who so badly bluffed the "Wellington City Council, has been writing acainst the "general strike" idea. It is odd to find him writing , in something of the spirit as those, articles in The Dominion and the Evening Post that were so violently assailed by tho misguided men whom the Wakd Government were_ glad to appropriate, as tools; but it is none the less satisfactory to find him saying that "the insanity of syndicalism, the absurdity of the strike as the sole, or even the principal, weapon in industrial warfare, must be abandoned by those who would speak for labour, or the Labour movement must abandon utterly and for all time such dancrcrous and disorderly leadership." This can cnily be achieved through a full realisation by the workers, first, that the community will not permit any organisation to bail it up, and, second, that the Labour loaders who suggest anything else arc deadly enemies of the real interests cf workingmen. A great many peonle hold the view that in the nature "of things tho organised workers must remain in the hands of self-seeking demagogues: but we do not share that view. There are Labour leaders in every country who are sincere and honest men. not seltseekers, and as anxious for justice to others as for justice to their clients. lii Now Zealand, unhappily, the workers' interests have in most eases got into bad hands, into the hands of sly demagogues; and it is a fortunate circumstance that tho Federation of Labour is helping to make this clear to everyone.