UNITY CONGRESS COMMITTEE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 577, 18 June 1913, Page 7

UNITY CONGRESS COMMITTEE.

CONGRESS CONVENED FOR JULY Ist, 1913, AT WELLINGTON, (The matter in this column is supplied by authorised advocates of the Basis of Unity adopted by the Trade Union Conference, which met in January at Wellington. The writers of the articles are alone responsible for the opinions.therein expressed). AN INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. A SOUND BUSINESS PROPOSITION. (By M. J. Forde, President of the Southland District Labour Council). In a contribution under this heading friend R. S. Ross indicated his belief that the desire for unity, which was so characteristic of the January Conference, was a further proof of the soundness of the doctrine of the Materialistic Conception of History. I am inclined to agree with him, as never perhaps previously in the history of the Labour movement in this Dominion has the bread and butter question the most important question in life—loomed so largely in connection with the Waibi and Slaughtermen's strikes. Theße defeats have taught us how futile it is for a section of the workers to wage against »the enemy. Defeat and disaster are the inevitable results. Therefore, it is obvious that so long as organised Labour allows itself to be composed of warring factions, as has been the case in the past, the sad lesson of abortive effort will be taught it again and again. But I believe that commonsense is being gradually instilled into us, and no better proof of this assumption may be advanced than the splendid response that is now being made by Labour bodies throughout the Dominion, to the invitation to send delegates to the July Conference. Personally, apart altogether from platform and objective in the meantime, I think the first thing for the Labour forces to do is to get together. When that has been done I feel assured that the rest will be | comparatively plain sailing. The trouble in the past ha 3 been that we have not endeavoured to meet and 1 know each other, and one faction has in effect continued to say to the other, "We will cram our ideas down your throats." That ill-advised and nonsensical attitude ha 3 proven costly. Just as one can drive a horse to a trough but cannot force him to drink, so the average self-respecting human being Will resist the attempt of anyone to "cram" anything down his throat. Had there been some little diplomacy used,had an honest and per- | sistent and tolerant effort been made to educate the workers, the Labour movement in this country would be on a better footing today. However, we profit by the mistakes that are j made, and I am convinced that from the July Conference will emerge a party which will at least have laid the foundation for united effort, instead of, as in the past, being a number of units, heckling and snarling at each other, like so many schoolboys after a hotly-contested football match. Indeed, the political and economic organisations of the working class have, perhaps unconsciously, been gradually I drifting together, and I think that j even the most pessimmistic will soon I be compelled to admit that the Social- ! ist movement has during the last j twelve months alone gained tremendous strength and support from the Labour union forces. And that is as it should be. My entire experience and gobservation is that the lesson of the bundle of seven sticks is good for all time and places, and that we will pull the road easier if we all pull one way on the rope. "United, we stand ; divided, we fall." In regard to the basis of unity, as a basis I support it whole-heartedly, because it makes for an industrial democracy. It looks to me like bad business judgment for a people to perpetuate an industrial method that brings each indvidual member in society into antgonistic relations with every other, and that arranges society, as a whole, into antagonistic and warring classes, who spend more of their industrial energies in the devising of ways and means for the letting of each other down than they do for the helping of each other up. Neither does it look to me like good business judement for a country to perpetuate an industrial method the results in the utter waste of more than half its productive energy, and places the burden of society on the back of the weakest member of it. Economic development has broughtus to the point where we must, as a nation, choose between an industrial democracy and an industrial plutocracy; and, in view of present and past experiences, it looks to me as if it would be bad business policy to choose the plutocracy. Shall we have co-operation, equality of opportunity; and national advancement, or competition, monopoly of opportunity and national decline? Abraham Lincoln once said that no nation could long enduure half bond and half free, and the history of the world stands a monument in evidence, that individual freedom can be maintained only by national adherence to democratic principles, and that violation of these principles have produced every revolution and caused the final downfall of evflry great nation that has passed from the stage of action; and it is departure from these principles that to-day makes necessary constantly increasing armies that are being organised to stay the rapidly rising tile ot discontent, which may soon break forth in a world-wide cohßict. But, apart from every other factor that has to be considered, there is in onr land that which must finally wreck this country. Whenever land is made private property, its price must increase with every increase of population. An increase in the value of land means that the capital in the land has increased itß power. When the land is free, the occupier receives

100 per cent, of his product, and aa the land increases in price, he must accept gradually decreasing per cent. The per cent, the occupier of land receives is his wages, and forms the wage barometer of the country. When the Wages decline on the farm they will decline in the factory and store as well. In other words, as the price of land goes up, the price of the man mu3t go down. Should our present land system continue to be pepretuated, it is only a matter of time until the small farmer in this country will be no better off than the Italian farmer who receives only 25 per cent, of the product, and in Italy the wa-?e line corresponds to this condition. Are we ready and willing to follow further in the footsteps of dying Italy, Spain, and other pauperised nations? Or, having perceived the true cause of their downfall, present in our body politlic, shall we seek to remove it? Are we ready to turn our children and our children's children over into a bondage worse than any African slavery ever was, without so much as raising a finger to prevent it? If not, the hour for determined action is here now. Religious democracy and political democracy are of secondary importance as compared to industrial democracy. It is the foundation upon which the others must rest. Not until it is achieved will the nations of the earth beat their awords into pruning hooks and learn war no more. Therefore let us gird our loins, and go forth to the July Conference imbued with a determination to do things. Let us declare for an industrial democracy. In the oftL'epoated words of Brother Mills, let us "get together and get busy."