LABOUR'S TACTICS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1913, 22 November 1913, Page 6

LABOUR'S TACTICS.

AUSTRALIAN FAIRY TALES. SOME SAMPLES. Some statements as violently abusive •is they are untrue are contained in articles on the subject of the Now Zealand strike which have been published m recent issues of the "Australian Worker, One article bears a heading: "Government's Bratrf Tactics," and mentions that « cablegram has keen' received by 'The Worker*' from Mr. M JUaracy, - general secretory of the New Zealand (shearers' - Union, as follows:— 'Keep' shearers and all labour awav from Maoriland. A ■ fijrht to a finish here." , ~ Of the period immediately following the declaration of the strike, it is said': Although periect quiet prevailed, tl-m Government Mumediatelv commenced the enrolment of thousands of 'special constables,' drafted .regiments of, troops into the streets' established cordons of police at the waterfront, and, worse than all, landed a detachment of bluejackets with nxert bayonets from His Majesty s warship Psyche,' which,' by arrangement, was moored in Wellington Harbour a few days after the commencement of the strike. . , . When they (the bluejackets) returned to the warship, however, they trimmed up,tho Maxim guns in readiness to mow down, at word of command, any -group 0 f workers who might congregate on the wharves. For these acts Magistrate -uKidell, oi Wellington, is responsible." 'VFlie capitalistic papers arc lavishly writing tip these incidents of violence, in an attempt to turn, -public opinion against tho strikers, but the latter have repudiated all"connection with tire- disturbances. , . . Very little free labour is engaged."

' The strike was deliberately provoked by 'the Federated Employers. A\ ith malice aforethought thev forced t)ie mon ont . . . instructed their claiiv organs to misrepresent ami vilify the strikers . . . 110 other explanation of their action is possible." "The waterside workers, exasperated by insults ' ' 'Gangs of 'scabs', wore scraped together out of the dirt and the dnrk places and under the escort of the poiice these unhappy wretches were marched en the wharves and into the holds of the ships." "... they (the employers) raked the gutters for 'scabs'." "The quarrel .with the shipwrights was merely a pretext. The flouting of the Waterside Union was a studied net of provocation." "They expelled the workers from tin? wharves at the bayonet point. . . ." "The Federated Employers, who are ■practically tho Government of tile country, will seize on the slightest cxcusc to use brute foree and drown the newborn Labour .movement in blood."