THE MENACE OF THE LABOUR TRUST.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1455, 1 June 1912, Page 7

THE MENACE OF THE LABOUR TRUST.

Sir,— Referring to the Press Association's report of that garrulous body, the "Federation of Labour," at their conference in Wellington, and their resolution to the effect that the "sentiments of Tom Mann moct with tlieir entire approval," it is interesting to note what is meant by this agreement with the drivel cf that wholesale individual confiscate. Ik-re aro some of his sayings, ''1 defy the Government," "Parliament is to be destroyed, "I am going to rebel auaiust society." "Take your laws, take yourselves (tho Government) and go to tho devil." A very high ideal this, and one which brings forth men of the type of tho Paris motor bandits. This shows conclusively that it is high time all reasonable men such as employers of labour, farmers, mercantile men, ami others, banded themselves together to resist the pretensions and revolutionary methods of this socalled "Federation of Labour." I append a cutting from the "Weekly Scotsman,, which refers to the attempt of Tom Mann to induce the Jung's soldiers not to obey orders, but from what I know of them there is no feut of the soldiers being influenced by red rag Socialists. If Tom Mann and others of the same kidney were forced to spend six months in, say, Rus-. sia. or Germany, they would come back (if ever at all) sadder and wiser men.—l am, etc., ' SCOTUS. [Enclosure.] Those who are opposed to the prosecution of the three persons concerned in the publication of.the "Syndicalist," ignore the fact that the punishment was imposed not for advocating the non-inter-ference of the military in industrial disputes but for the offence of attempting to eeduce the soldiers of the- King from obedience to the orders of their officers. No one is more sensitive in this matter than thn trade unionist. Trade officials issue orders as stringent as those given by any army officer, and they expect implicit obedience. Well they know that the military aro never called in until tho civil police are at the end of thc-ir resource,?, and veil tlipy know that the rifle is never used except as a last resort. Socialists and others who think with them are not alone in theii dislike of firing upon crowds, but when force and disorder are in operation, there is no alternative but to meet disorder with order and force bv superior force. And in the doing of it, the soldier is at least as much bound to obey his officer? as the trades unionist feds bound to obey his leaders.