CAPITAL AND GELIGNITE.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 17, 18 November 1913, Page 2

CAPITAL AND GELIGNITE.

The alleged timely “ discovery ” of twelve plugs of gelignite, with detonators, on the railway near Auckland, a few moments before the Main Trunk express passed over the spot, recalls the dynamite planting scandal in Lawrence, TT.S.A., last year: a plot which involved the indictment of several capitalists, and the suicide of one of their number.

The statement of the “ New Zealand Herald that “ There is ample evidence that the plan was deliberately designed,” recalls the fact, also, that in the case of the Lawrence “ discovery ” the “ Boston American,” a capitalist paper, had the news of the “ discovery on sale in the streets before the incident had actually happened.

This cowardly capitalist plot with file concomittant piece of over-smart journalism was deliberately designed to discredit the Lawrence strikers; but it failed owing to a mistake made by Breen, the undertaken hired to do the job, who planted the explosive in the wrong place; and to one of the conspirators confessing, whilst drunk, and afterwards shooting himself. It is significant, in connection with the

\ P < incident, that two prominent Labour men, one an I.W.W. organiser, as well as several local strike delegates, were on the express, and that the hero who “kicked the obstruction aside ” (he had, according to the “ Herald,” four minutes to “ kick ” the jelly, detonators (!), and all) did not report liis remarkable “ discovery ” until the next day. It is hardly conceivable that, in a respectable British community like New Zealand, where relations between Labour and capital are really brotherly, that an employers’ federation can be persuaded into importing the desperate tactics of American employers; or that a staid morning journal of the “ Herald ” calibre can possibly be mixed up in a plot to plant and “ discover ” explosives, but it is certain that the promulgation of foreign methods, by a desperate minority of employers, is having a bad effect on law-abiding members of the Employers’ Federation.

Another very significant feature of the alleged dynamite discovery is the recent resignation of prominent members of the Employers’ Federation, coming, as it did, a few days before the . . : affair it compels thoughtful members of a law-abiding community to ponder if it would not be better to take energetic measures to check the importation and promulgation of the criminal and dastardly methods of the infamous Merchants’ and Manfacturers’ Association of America.