Politics and Principles

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

Politics and Principles

1? will- he apparent to ryiyoim conversant with the Labour Movement that, during its history. ih> process of exhausting li»e possibili 4 - lios of error lias bet-n closely followed. Organisation after organisation has sprung up. each }•: ■ ing. as its main thesis, the Socialisation of Wealth, each allowing its leaders to go about it in their own way. A cloud of political compromises has invariably settled about the organisation, causing inevitable confusion. One section, tinally. kicks itself clear of its political traces, and. uncompromising forges ahead; another, blinded by the plausibleuess of its leaders, clinging fast to a name, a combination of initial letters, forgets its class mission and becomes a worshipper of men, a reverencer of names. How often is not this statement reiterated ?

1 like your policy, but don’t care to leave the 5.H.1., you know. ’ ’

What of the principle of principles ! W hat of Working Class Kmancipation ? All else is illu-

sion. and yet, even that paramount principle is. too commonly, accorded mere lip-service, and will he, so long as the workers arc content to he led, so long as they continue to allow a comparative "few to determine their destiny. Renegades there have-"-traitors there are The fault lies nyt-so- much in them as in tnisf them. Parliamentary honours have been heaped upon men in whom the desire for personal, individual betterment lias, possibly, proved stronger than the. desire for the betterment of their class.

Emancipation from wage slavery is the only thing the workers need vitally concern, themselves about. Gap.ital.ixm depends upon wage slavery for its existence. ( apitalistie, or Parliamentary, legislation can, therefore, never tacitly help the workers one step forward towards emancipation. It is Revolution, not reformation, that the present economic system needs. The Capitalists fear a working class revolt, and arc amenable. on occasion, to reforms. Bui these reforms act only as palliatives. as surface-smoothers, and. sooner or later, trouble bursts out anew. So it follows that any Capitalist measure, even though supported by workers’ representatives, must become a barrier to working-class economic freedom. Parliamentarism hoodwinks the workers and tightens the chains of wage-slavery about them. Leadership misdirects the naturally revolutionary spirit of the workers, and their industrial welfare becomes sporadic and the issue clouded. It is Industrial Action that counts—Direct Action. Though tdl the forces of the crown, as recent events have amply demonstrated. will he employed to defeat Industrial, or Direct, Action, even at the cost of arousing, not only (lie anger of the workers, hut their class-consciousness, also, (so.panic stricken were tin empiovers) ; though the workers may he coerced and deceived, mocked and derided by the self-instituted superior ones; though, as a final act of intimidation, Law and Order may be suspended; yet the workers know—blackleg and striker alike—that they, through their power to strike, hold a whip over the usurpers of the world’s wealth that shall, finally, lash them out of existence. Workers of the World ! Waste not your lime and energy <m politics. •h/m the most scientific industrial organisation to hand. Leave not your destiny in the hands of any individual, however sincere. Eplifi. emancipate yourselves 50l ITS ELVES through

DIRECT ACTION, thronoj., !\_ Dl ST RIA LO RG AN IS ATI ON.

Your place is in tin* Industrial Workers of the World !

DOD HOOK,