The Dominion THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1919. LABOUR ATTACKED FROM WITHIN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 113, 6 February 1919, Page 4

The Dominion THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1919. LABOUR ATTACKED FROM WITHIN

Troubled as the industrial outlook still is in Great Britain, there fire hopeful indications that the extremists who have forced strikes in different parts of the country and indulged in serious riotingat Glasgow and elsewhere are being strongly opposed by a level-headed majority in. the trades unions. This impression is heightened by reports that the strikes arc collapsing, _ and also by the fact that the British Government is limiting .•Its intervention to the measures necessary to restore, and maintain order. In Glasgow these measures seem to have been taken firmly and with complete success. It is stated •in one of to-day's cablegrams that as the outcome of a meeting at which Cabinet considered the whole question of industrial unrest, the Government _ will continue to refrain from intervention in any of the strikes. This in itself shows that the conflicts now in. progress are clearly distinguished from, industrial disputes of the ordinary type. If the Government believed that the strikers were out to support industrial demands' regarded by them as legitimate it undoubtedly would offer to mediate in the hope of enabling the business of the country to proceed as smoothly £s possible. By implication, its attitude at once condemns the pretensions of the strikers and indicates an opinion on its part that the organised workers may be trusted to set their own house in order. It is perhaps rather early, to be optimistic on the point, but trades union members have certainly every possible.inducement to exert themselves in this direction, The : nature of the which thus £af has found expression in dis- [ orderly ' upheavals in Great Britain is not in doubt. It is frankly an attempt to upset the constitutional machinery of the unions themselves and stampede them into •a course of action from which common sense must bid them re■eoil. Generally speaking v the ! strikes which are now disturbing the United' Kingdom have been declared against the advice of. the duly elected executive authorities of the various unions, _ and are being organised and directed by improvised sectional bodies which have no real claim to representative authority. Whatever its bearing upon the total life of the nation may be, the movement is unquestionably formidable as an attempt to divert trades unions from the pursuit of constructive reforms into courses of anarchy and violence which will tell nowhere more fatally than 'against the interests of Labour. From the New Zealand standpoint the attempt is, of much more than academic interest, for it is distinctly possible that in defiance of all reason and justice strenuous efforts may be made to develop_ a similar attack upon the Labour movement in this country. An understanding of the attempt by a Bolshevik element to capture the' British. Labour movement is assisted by recent events in Australia centering on the One Big Union agitation. It is _to v be _ said for those who are pushing this project that so far as the methods they

favour are concerned' they have made their position perfectly clear, For instance, Me. J. S. Garden,, secretary of the Sydney, Labour Council, stated a fortnight ago that the idea of taking a universal 'ballot of the unions to ascertain whether they favoured the big union or not had been abandoned, and that it was now proposed to go direct to the workers on their jobs, at dockyards, in mines, and--60 forth, and get them to elect "shop committees." The object aimed at is obvious. Avowedly

these, tactics are directed against the authority of the existing union officials, but this' is only part of the truth. Manifestly the essential aim is to get so-called representatives of Labour elected under conditions in which noisy minori-

ties will be likely to dominate the more moderate elements which preponderate numerically in most unions. It is proposed in fact to overthrow constitutional procedure within the unions themselves, and to substitute mob-rule and violence. Lest any doubt should remain, Me. Garden states 'that his object is to

institute the conditions that exisl

in Germany anct Russia. I am starting (he observed) to draft for our cunimittee in Sydney a sohenio on the same lines as that of Hamburg. I say the Soviet system in Russia should be adopted here, the same as we have adopted it for our committee in Sydney. .'. . Each one can be a propagandist in his own State, and arouse interest, so that a propaganda school like that of the Bolshevists of Moscow may be started, Naturally this outrageous attempt to import into Australia conditions which have worked out in Russia in wholesale murder, terrorism, and famine is not going unopposed. Some Labour leaders have had the courage to outspokenly denounce the attempts made under cover of the One Big Union project to stampede the industrial organisations .into anarchy, and an _ important piece of evidence regarding the extent to which. moderate views prevail was afforded the other day when a ballot ' of all members throughout the Commonwealth was taken by the Australian Workers' Union on the question whether, as a future policy, they believed in arbitration or direct action. The ballot, according to , the Sydney Sun, gave a substantial majority in favour of arbitration! jn ail States. It is impossible meantime to foretell the course of events in the immediate future either in Great Britain or Australia, but it is not in doubt that the Bolshevik movement which is being visibly promoted in both countries is the most insidious, if not the' most dangerous, attack ever made upon the welfare ,of_ the organised workers, and that if ifc is not firmly repressed it will raise indefinite obstacles to the satisfaction of their legitimate ambitions. In the conditions of political freedom that exist in all British countries men who talk of revolution and set themselves to overthrow constitutional methods and promote violence are either lunatics or criminals. The aim 'of any legitimate revolution is to create such conditions as British people already enjoy. Wage-earners and their dependants, as the most numerous section of the community, < and therefore the predominant political power, are possessed of a]l possible freedom to improve their lot by

orderly methods, and obviously it is not their friends who seek to induce them to abandon this position of advantage and to throw their own affairs and those of their country into disorder. The appeal of Bolshevism is to irresponsibility, ignorance, and aimless discontent. Where it is established the result is to drag down all save those who contrive to batten on the misery of their fellows t,o the level of the lowest. There is little enough clanger of Bolshevism becoming a dominant force in any British country. But the immediately practical question for trades unionists is that in the degree in which their organisations are penetrated by Bolshevism they will be crippled and made impotent. Until the sense of social order and responsibility which permeates our communities is lost Bolshevism will never be more_ in any part of the British Empire than a distemper affecting weaklings and groundlings; and making them the gullible tools of unscrupulous revolutionaries. But even in this degree of development it is capable, if not actively fought and'suppressed by trades unionists themselves, of splitting the Labour movement from end to end and of eclipsing for the time being whatever hopes would otherwise obtain of substantial progress and improvement in working and living conditions.