A Vindication

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1 February 1913, Page 3

A Vindication

Certain prominent individuals, posing as revolutionary industrialists, have been going about slandering and misrepresenting the Auckland branch of the I.W.W. The chief stock-in-trade of these rather noisy personalities, judging by their utterances from the platform, is bluster, self-glorification, and what they can remember of one of Debs’ pamphlets. One of them recently said, at'a large public meeting in Auckland, that he placed these “ I.W.W. groups” in the “ same category as Walsh and Co., and other scab organisers and strike-breakers,” and that the I.W.W. groups were “ causing dissent in the Socialist parties.” We are not concerned about disin any political party, but we strongly resent being categorised with any industrial carrion. The object of the few individuals referred to is transparent enough—it is to find someone to carry the

blame for their own incompetency and their blunders of the past few months. * Tins is not intended for them, for we cannot take them seriously, but for any unionists outside of Auckland who, not having yet come into touch with the I.W.W. propaganda, and having no other channel through which to get information as to its attitude and its doings, may be inclined to believe them. The I.W.W. does not habitually recount what it has done in the iu-

terests of the working class, but, in self-defence, it must be stated that the Auckland I.W.W. consistently upheld the cause of the Waihi strikers all through the recent trouble, and rendered all possible assistance. Its members initiated and took an active part in organising the big protests that were held in this city; they were the first to go out and hold meetings for this purpose when the miners were sent to jail; the Auckland labour move-

ment knows this, and the Waihi men know it. For several months, more than half the time was taken up at the propaganda meetings in an effort to counteract the lies and insinuations against the Waihi strikers which were appearing in the press. For this we require no thanks. During that time it was never forgotten that the interests of the Working class stand first, and for that reason many things were left unsaid.

The local has persistently advocated One Big Union on industrial lines, and its speakers have not hesitated to point out the difference between an industrial union and a mass craft organisation. They have pointed out also—and will continue to point out—the danger of centralised power, and of trusting blindly to ap. executive, particularly to an executive which we do not consider to be a reflection of the intelligence of the workers.