“LABOUR LEG IRONED.”

Hokitika Guardian, 20 October 1928, Page 7

“LABOUR LEG IRONED.”

UL'I’OSTTION LEADERS CONDEMNATION OF ARBITRATION.

The lender of the Opposition in the New Zealand House of Representatives, Mr IJ. E. Holland, prior to his settling in New Zealand and becoming the editor of “The Maorilnnd Worker,” edited “ Tim International Socialist,” the oflicial organ of the Australian Socialist Party. While so engage! he published a pamphlet entitled “ Labour Leg-Ironed,” in which lie denounced the Australian and New Zealand Arbitration Acts in scathing terms, and set forth the following as—- “ THE SOCI ALIST ALTERNATIVE.

“The Socialist Party maintains its attitude of uncompromising hostility to the principle of the Arbitration Court. It declares that the present form of society rests on the ownership of land and machinery—-the primary source of wealth production—and the tools of wealth production. Those who own the land and machinery constitute the capitalist-class. This form of ownership divides society into two classes—the owners and the workers. The workers produce all the wealth, and receive an ever-decreasing portion of it. Because this is so, there is an irreconciablo conflict of interests between the two classes. The owners strive to secure a larger proportion of the wealth the workers .make; the workers strive to get more of the wealth they make. The Arbitration Court really exists to say how much the workers shall ne legally robbed of—and to see that they are penalised if they object to the robbery. The Socialist Party proclaims that the workers should not be satisfied with a portion—they should demand ALL the wealth they wrest from Nature’s sources. To get the wealth they make, the workers must first abolish the wages system—they must abolish wage-slavery. To abolish, wage-sla-very and thus win economic freedom the workers df this country must unite on the industrial and political field. They must unite industrially in one great revolutionary organisation—ONE BIG UNION—on the lines of the Industrial Workers of the World, to fight scientifically and uncompromisingly, with never a section of the workers scabbing on any other section —to fight with every .weapon that will serve workingclass interests to wrest from the exploiters every temporary .concession that may he wrested, but ever to keep its eyes turned towards tho goal of the Social Revolution (owneisliip of the world and its wealth by the workers) its feet ever tending thitherward. They must unite on the political field in one big revolutionary Socialist Party, likewise to wrest every concession that may be wrested, as our “Guiding Principle” lays down, but always to strive for our revolutionary objective: — The overthrow' of capitalism, the uprearing of the Socialist Republic. “ So organised—and with our organisation built on a solid (foundation of working-class knowledge—with no divisions of race or creed, coloui 01 sex, we might well laugh our exploiters to scorn, smash through the awards and penalties of their Aibi-

tration Courts, tear down the superstructure of their legal power to oppress, and swiftly plant the Red Flag—emblem alike of working class revolt mid of humanity freed—on the world’s citadel of industriulisiA.”