“TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS,” ETC.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 16, 15 November 1913, Page 2

“TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS,” ETC.

AND THE DAILY PAPERS. The reports of the strikers’ scouts are in very marked contrast to the “ day-lie ” press reports anent “ Free Labour ” operating on the wharves. This applies to Wellington and Auckland, as well as the smaller ports. As an instance, the “ Star ” reports 400 “ Arbitrationists ” working the Wellington ships; but the Labour advices report 40 —ra very convenient typographical “ error ” for the “ Star.”

Another press method of the employers is to state that “ 1,200 have offered to work.” Boiled down to mere truth the statement really means that about 100 men (?), who don’t usually work, have offered to try to make some show of doing work requiring 1,500 men. A scout overheard an exasperated employer remark that next io no work was being done on any of the wharves, that it was an absolute fact that four of the persons active a day or two ago could llot average as much work as one proper Watersider, and that they had done far more damage, by their clumsiness, than their labour was really worth. It is hardly necessary nowadays to point out the real business of the daily papers. Most workers realise that they function merely in the interests of the employing class, and that class only.

It costs many thousands to establish a modern daily, for that reason alone they are not likely to help the workers. Furthermore, powerful influences are brought to bear to compel these few papers which, by any unusual combination of circumstances, may be inclined to use their influence on the side of Labour.

It is a very usual thing just now to hear strikers, sympathisers, and “ men in the street ” make some such remark as : “ Seen the Piffle to-day?” “Oh, yes; but you can’t depend on the newspapers.” “That’s right; they fake even the news items to suit themselves.”

"There are still a few workers, however, who fail to realise that those daily newspapers that make a pretence of being friendly to Labour are the most dangerous, because insidious. We have a typical instance in the two big dailies published in Auckland. The “ Herald ” is anathema to the average worker because of its implacable, bitter, and undisguised hostility to the strikers. We can bold a certain kind of respect for such a paper —the respect due to a bitter and unscrupulous, but open enemy. Mo worker is deluded about the “ Herald ” kind of daily.

Hot so with the “ Star.” Go back to the time of the Wailii strike, when every mental prostitute of the daily press shrieked and howled for the masters against the handful of battling miners of Wailii. Where was the “ Star ” then? We all remember.

But thin gs were somewhat different then. Labour was dosing, and Labour did not rally to help the Wailii miners. Labour is awake to-day. It would never do for a Liberal paper to antagonise Labour too much —political issues are at stake. Besides, there are perhaps some

gullible ones among the workers, and the “ Star ” must get their ear, must get their confidence, in order to all the more easily pour in the poison. The average daily capitalist press journalist is just a mental prostitute simply. True, there are reporters and others who would do the square thing, but blue pencils are cheap enough, and the “ Star ” has plenty on hand. “Mental prostitute” is not at all extravagant language to apply to the leader writers and news fakers who, in return for a comfortable job, suppress their convictions and concoct the dope that is intended to hypnotise and deceive just sufficient of the working class to keep Labour divided.

Every large city has its two or more big day-lies, one Tweedledee and the other Tweedledum. There are powerful influences behind each, and each is tainted more or less —generally more —with intellectual prostitution. The Auckland “ Star ” just now is making a bid to get into grace with local workers. The “ Star ” represents certain industrial and political interests which are anxious for a settlement of the strike. Hence its attempts to mislead some of us into the belief that a lot of work is going on; its advocacy of the secret ballot; its contradictory items, etc. Of course important news items have to be recorded with fair accuracy. It is the comments, editorial articles, trick headlines, etc., that vve are to beware of. That is chiefly where the mental prostitution shows itself, though even news items are often faked or suppressed altogether. The “ Star’s ” wild and desperate attempts to create confusion in the strike, also those of other papers, are really an indication of the desperate straits of the employers, for the daily press is the voice of Eat, and Eat is losing many thousands daily. The advertisements appearing in the papers announcing that so-and-so’s will be open to employees on a certain date are fakes —the jobs have been open all along to any scab who would resume work. The ads. are, if read right, pitiful appeals to us to go back and resume profit making. Such is the advance of working class intelligence, however, that few outside the mentally defective can be deceived. In other words, intelligent workers ignore the advice of Capitalist daily newspapers. —P. Ralie.