The Unity Scheme

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 5, 1 June 1913, Page 2

The Unity Scheme

The unity scheme being offered, just now, to the N.Z. Workers is, in essence, but another presentation of the Unity Proposals promulgated by Professor W. T. Mills. We refer to the Basis of Unity and the proposed fusion. The ambiguous Basis itself contains contradictions. There are to be, says the Basis, one organisation in industry and one organisation in polities, and we are assured, elsewhere, that “ the two organisations ’ ’ are to be kept distinctly separate, yet the political party “ shall consist of unions, ’’ etc. Can a political party be kept separate from its component parts ? The preamble proclaims that the interests of the workers can be upheld only by an organisation formed so that all its members cease work if necessary when any strike or lockout is on, but the paragraph on strikes says that no department shall involve the national organisation in any strike without first placing the matter unreservedly in the hands of the national executive.

Tliis is bad enough, when we recall past events, but it is more significant whpn considered in connection with the paragraph on arbitration which announces that the U.F.L. “ leaves the matter of registration, or of not registering, or of cancelling registration under the Cdnciliation and Arbitration Act, entirely with each union.”

There is the promise of an executive divided, vacillating, in the hour when swift, decisive action is essential to victory; of a rank and file incapable, because of legal entanglements, of rendering the only kind of support that counts ; of a pantomime elephant with the back legs waiting to strike while the front legs insist on arbitration. A sure basis for disunity.

But why trouble about the printed Basis f Is it not merely ink on paper—just a sort of chart —and lias not an authorised advocate taken care to point out that “ the waving of charts . . . does not help in the least?” The true basis for inquiry or criticism is to be found in the utterances of the unity leaders — it must be admitted that the rank and file is really playing but a secondary, a passive, part. To quote the spoken word, then, as delivered by responsibles at the Auckland Opera House, we learn that “ all success is gained by compromise also that there is “ any amount of room for improvement (in the Basis) . . . but, sound or unsound / we can do nothing divided.”

From the same platform we are told—by the chief leader of the reactionists, the author of the condemned unity scheme—that “ we must never concede fundamentals” that “ not in any single instance were these conceded, only forms of statement and forms of organisation. ”

If this assurance is reliable—and we have no reason to doubt it—then the other half of the proposed “ marriage”—the Federation—must have conceded something very substantial, for were they not the revolutionists who advocated the strike and anathematised arbitration and its upholders ?

To turn to the written word, one of the authorised advocates says, in the special column of the Federation’s official organ: “The Employers’ Association, which controls the Government, controls the Massey Machine, and also controls just as absolutely the Vigor Brown contingent of the Liberal Party, together with those who can be influenced by them, should understand that there will be plenty of room for all on giving the oath of allegiance to either army.”

The above speaks for itself. The following, culled from the official organ, the Unity Bulletin, is also interesting: “ Again monopolised markets at home and abroad, monopolised natural opportunities . . in these matters great numbers of professional workers, employers, farmers , shopkeepers and others are already finding that their interests lead them necessarily into an alliance with the Labour movement. But the January Conference proposed more and the July Congress is going to undertake more, than the organisation of those who are working for wages under the proposed United Federation of Labour.”

The art. of writing so as to mean two things or no thing is well developed with some labour papers, but doubtless the above quoted proposals can be explained as being in the interests of, the Working Class. Again, says the Bulletin for April: “ That will be the meaning of the July Congress. Don't let a single union fail to be there ! Even those employers who can read the signs of the times, who are willing to abandon the anti-socail attitude of the other employers and of the land monopolists, and to make an end of the political jugglery by which exploiters exercise their power, should join at once the U.L.P. branches, Socialist Locals, or any of the economic organisations which will entitle them to representation in the work of the July Congress.”

Also in the Bulletin we find stated: “ There are to be two organisations, according to the Basis of Unity, but they are not to duplicate each other’s work, not to overlap each other’s territory . . . one will be composed of wage workers only to light the battles with industrial weapons of those who are wage workers only, while the other will be composed of all useful (!) workers, whether wage workers or not. ’ ’

But under the heading “ Political Organisation” in the same issue of the Bulletin : “ The general educational work, the general industrial propaganda, the effective promotion of the organisation of the 300,000 unorganised workers will fall largely to the political organisation.” That is to say, that Fellow-worker Massey, Fellow-worker Rhodes, and all the other useful people (if only we can get their oath of allegiance) may soon be heard urging the industrial units to become the political units —from the platform of the S.D.P.

When this unity scheme was before the public eighteen months ago the objections, urged so strenuously by the federationists, were that single-tax clubs, professional men, parsons, etc., could gain admission. All these objections—if the above utterances count for anything—can be urged against the proposed organisation to-day. The general educational work, the general industrial propaganda, etc., is to fall most largely to the political organisation; the political organisation is to consist of unions; and the Employers’ Association should understand that there will be plenty of room for all. Criticism has been asked for, urged, challenged. But the scheme has been so well criticised by the Federation leaders during the past year and a-half that it seemed unnecessary. In the meantime the schemers have been quietly but steadily making ready for the goat to fall into the well, and it looks like the fox getting on top. for the fox has conceded nothing, only forms of statement and forms of organisation. * Where, we may well ask, is the authorised advocate, where the official organ, able to point out the essential difference between the Unity Proposals denounced so strenuously in the South, and in the Choral Hall, Auckland, and the unity scheme now offering to the workers —and other useful people ? Verily it ‘ ‘ hath an ancient and fisli-like smell! ’ ’