TOWARDS REVOLUTION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1404, 2 April 1912, Page 4

TOWARDS REVOLUTION.

Mr. Toji Mann may have a defence to put before the jury which is to try him on a' charge of inciting soldiers to mutiny. It would be improper at the present stage to express any opinion as to his guilt or innocence, but we may at least protest against the folly that would have Governments take no notice of such offences as that with which he is charged. The case against Me. Mann is based upon a speech at Salford, in which he claimed a share of the responsibility for an article in the tiyndicalut inciting soldiers to mutiny if ordered to fire on strikers. The editor and publishers of the paper have already been sentenced to imprisonment for the publication of the article. Nobody, likes the idea of the military being ordered to fire upon strikers or upon any other citizens, but it is the duty of the Government to keep order and protect property from destruction and persons from violence. If this cannot be done without firing upon rioters, then rioters must be fired upon, whatever part, they may or may not bo taking in connection with a strike. If a Government either exceeds or falls short of its duly in such a matter, it is for the people to call it to account. To incite soldiers to disobey their officers is to deal a blow at the very foundations of the State. But the Syndicalists are prepared to go further than that. Another periodical, the Dawn, was lately urging people to shoot' soldiers and policemen for interfering in labour disputes. No wonder Mr. Balfour said he was beginning to question whether tho forces of civilisation would be able to resist the agents of disintegration. We stand for freedom of tho press, but that does' not mean that offences such as the publication of seditious matter are to go unpunished.

The Syndicalists in Australia have gone .1 step or two further than their brethren in England, and we are glad to see that in at least one case the authorities have taken action. Mr. Munko, the organiser of the Australian Workers' Union, has been found guilty of sedition and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. It was stated in evidence that he had urged the strikers at Brisbane to see that non-unionists met with accidents. "A general massacre, of 'scabs' " was the. demand of some of the speakers at a meeting of coal miners at Wonthaggi, Victoria, the other day. But perhaps the most audacious thing was the demand sent to the Federal Premier by Mr. Coyne, the chief organiser of the strike which he boasted brought Brisbane almost to the condition of a cemetery. This individual actuallyasked Mr. Fisher to send Federal troops to overawe , the Brisbane police in the interests of the strikers. These were his words, as reported : "The Strike Committee had sent an urgent telegram to Mr. Fisher asking him to send out the military to protect the people of Brisbane against the police. It was owing, however, to a defect in the .Federal Constitution that Mr. Fisher could not accede to the request." This is an amazing revelation of the lengths to whicli the strike leaders were_ prepared to go. Their mad and wicked idea was to create a civil war between the Commonwealth and the State.' Not content with making the city as much like a cemetery as they could, they wanted to be supplied with an army to conquer it. Their immediate aim was lied Revolution and a military dictatorship, and they thought that as a Labour Government was in power in_ the Commonwealth, it ought to assist them. At the very'time when Mr. Coyne was asking for Federal troops to fight the State of Queensland, Mtt. Denilw, the State Premier, was requisitioning Fedora 1 troops to assist the police iu preserving order. Mil. FiSHEi! did not send any troops, and it is held that in failing to comply with the State Premier's requisition h" was violalimr his sworn dufv under the. CV.iisliluiioii. To that extent Mi:. Coyne may claim to have succeeded in capturing the 'Federal Ooveniiiieiit for tli.i' cause of llevolnlion. Lacking niililarv aid, ihe Brisbane authorities hud lo swear in numbers of special constables. One ..f the unioiiisls at Ihe Wuiiihaugi meeting said: "Mi:. Fisiiki: should have sent the military to shout down the special police." That great democratic paper, the Melbourne Agr, says truly that there is a lesson to be learnt

from such wild and foolish talk; "It raises tin; curtain as to the length to which the Labour party, urged by its more violent members, is desiring to go. It is no longer content with the operations of self-government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It wants to substitute a reign of violence in the interests of a minority."