SYNDICALISM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1398, 26 March 1912, Page 5

SYNDICALISM.

DENOUNCED BY LABOUR MEMBERS. DOOR OPENED TO REACTION. (Rec. March 25, 11.0 p.m.) London, March 25. Addressing a meeting of five thousand miners at Castle Howard, Mr. Herbert Smith, president of the Miners' Association, said no Tory Government could have introduced a worse Bill than that brought down by Mr. Asquitli. The miners were not going to mark time to the tune of five shillings n day. The lneetitg resolved that tho schedule must be incorporated in the Bill. Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, leader of the Labour party, speaking at Bradford, denounced Syndicalism, which he said opened tho door to the worst form of reaction. Tho minimum rates must bo inserted in the Bill if the strike was to be settled. Mr. Jowctt, Labour member for West Bradford, at the same meeting said if Uie military were called out it would be their duty not to shoot. They had been enlisted solely to fight a foreign foe, and not to shoot unarmed crowds of their fellow-countrymen. Mr. Albert Stanley. Labour member for North-West Staffordshire, speaking at Stoke,"'said a short, sharp period of suffering was better for the masses than lifelong grovelling in poverty and distress, while a few people made millions of money. Mr. J. Thomas, Labour member for Derby, in a speech at Newcastle, said the coal strike was not the result of syndicalism, which was horriblo to contemplate, and would assuredly lead to disaster to the workers. He agreed that Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Balfour were right in declaring that the minimum could hot be confined to miners alone. Mr. Thomas, in an interview, suggested that if the Bill were withdrawn ths strike would end by the masters and men in each district in South Wales voluntarily agreeing to &n all-round minimum living wage of five shillings a day I'or adult* (o.tceptuld and infirm worker.?), and i>f two ■jliilliuge n day for boys. Uumoiujtv&tioaj at Muncluafcv, Saliaid,

Liverpool, and Glasgow have protest?:! against. Tom Mann's arrest.

COAL SHORTAGE IX BRAZIL. Rio de Janeiro, March 21. Merchants have notified the shipping companies that slocks of coal me e.\haiisled. NEWCASTLE TROUBI.F,. (liec. March lij, 3.30 p.m.) Sydney, March i!."i. A now development in connection with tho Newcastle mining situation is that tin- (.'ulmluniiiii Coal Compasiy has nftroeil to nboli.-h Hie afternoon shift at the Aberdeen and Alierdare Extended mines from Saturday next. SYNDICALISM AND TIIE GENERAL STRIKE. The aim of Syndicalism is (soys a writer in the "Fortnightly Review")' the overthrow of the present capitalistic society, and the substitution of unions of working men. controlling the whole industry. The Syndicalist advances beyond political or constitutional action. Ho works, not' through any Parliamentary group, but through "Class War," waged by the direct action of working men, grouped in liidustrial Unions, and employing the triple weapon of tho multiplied strike, the sympathetic strike, the general strike. "The pivot of Syndicalism is the general Etrike." The workman is assured that, once ho adopts Syndicalist policy, industrial capital will inevitably be transferred from its present owners to himself. Tho alwlition of wages is to form the basis of tho unions of the future. Tho workman is to control his own labour, producing die necessaries and luxuries of life for himself. Both the Utopia nnd tin , methods of Syndicalism are closely allied with the Utopia and the methods of Anarchism. , According to the famous exponent of Syndicalism, George Sorel, the new movement actually had its birth when the Anarchists entered and dominated tho.French Trade Unions or "Syndicate." "Historians," says 5L Sorel, "will one day recognise that this entranco of the anarchists into the 'syndicats' was one of the greatest events which have happened in our time." Both movement" aim at re-establishing society, after the necessary cataclysm of the general strike, on the basis of free groups of workmen, controlling tho produce of the world. Both aim at the destruction of patriotism, in favour of au international "solidarity" of workers—the siih^tittit-'on of the spirit of class for the spirit of 11ationp.lity. Both hail the multiplied strike as the first step to the general strike.