OUR TRAITORS

Marlborough Express, Volume L, Issue 82, 6 April 1916, Page 6

OUR TRAITORS

THE ENEMY IN OUR MIDST

PLAIN WORDS FROM A PLAIN

MAN.

(By C. B. Stan ton, M.P.) C. B. Stanton is a socialist. Ht is a democrat. Like Robert Blatcbford, though, he is first of all an .Englishman and .1 patriot. He believos that Prussian militarism is a worse foe to the British than British capitalism. So he is "doing his bit ' to crush Prussian militarism first. When that is done— C. B. Stanton gained .1 sweeping •victory at ths polling i:or the Merthyr division of "Wales...a few months ago. The Merthyi: division, .you may remember (remarks the Globe) was the late Keir Hardies "stamping ground." The Independent Labor Party threw its weight in the scale against Stanton. Ramsay Macdonakl, peace gabbler and disloyal political quack, visited the Merthyr hustings to help defeat .Stanton, who had plainly stated that for the duration of the war the only thing he cared about was that Britain and her Allies should win the war. , Such is C. B. Stanion. the man who penned the appended bitter indictment of the "traitors in our midst. Of these peace cranks he says: "If we are too mealy-mouthed to hang' them, or even to give them a. hero's death at the end of a firing party, they might at least be deported." One wonders what the Dantoncsque Stanton would have to say i-o some of our v Australian strikers? Here is what he lias to say of those "Britons whose actions are hamper-ang-the British Government in the prosecution of the war:— ■ I recently came across a cartoon by "that admirable draughtsman, Will' Dyson, published in a rag called the Herald, that ought to be burnt by the common hangman. The draw--iiig—allegorical in character—depicted what were described as the "German Prussian" and the ''British Prussian," the latter—the distorted bloated figure of the Plutocrat (with a. capital P), and underneath the inimitable cartoonist made tliG "German Prussian" (the ■figure <ef militarism) say:' "Ah! you admit you have to get our method of conscription to beat Germany; we want 3t for.the defeat of England." \ Now Mr George Lansbnry, the'editor of this paper, was known at one time as an advanced Christian Socialist, a communicating member ' of the Church of England, and a devout follower of the Master. When ."Mr George Lansbury published this 'pestilential stuff he was either deliberately lying, and thereby sinning •against the Holy Spirit, or he proved "himself to be a dangerous idiot, who ■ought > be placed under restraint ■ for the go id of himself and the country. For what does Mr -Lansbury affirm? He affirms to a horde, .mainly composed of illiteicite or seditiousminded readers, that when . this •country, face to face with the mightiest military Power that has -ever existed on earth, feels it n^jces«ary to call on all her sous for our ■^common defence, just as Kaiserdom --'^and Junkerdom have militarised-the ; 120,000,000 in the German and Austrfen Empires for aggression, this is done in order that capital should rivet the chains of "wage slavery" an the manual workers. You lie, Mr Lansbury, you lie, and your cartoon- 1 Ist, Dyson, who one day publishes"! this sort of trash in your treasonable rag, and another day draws another cartoon to point an opposite, in other >papers, is exposing' at once his art . :aitd his genius-to harsh criticism. "POISONOUS, PESTILENTIAL TRASH."

I have fought as strongly as any •man against the injustices of the capitalist system. I have given as many hostages to fortune as has Mr Lansbury in defence of the class to which I."belong. , But this is war, Mr lansbury ! This, is/ war ! and you at this moment >seek to take advantage

of your country's peril, .seek to disunite your countrymen, seek to dishearten the boys in the trenches, prove yourself to be a danger to the Commonwealth, whatever your motives may be—and T, a revolutionary Socialist, teJl you that for this work, for this dastardlywwortk t you ought to be phot. Those are strong words, hut. I use them deliberately, tor I mean them. Capitalist Tetters, indeed ! Common honesty, common -decency, must force you to admit that duke ana lord, stockbroker and merchant, landowner and banker, shipper ana mine-owner have not shrunk from the sacrifice of their own lives and the sacrifice of lives dearer to thorn than" their own., equally with th«j' shopman, the clerk, the commercial traveller, the miner, the factory-hand, the dock-worker, and the agricultural laborer. ~

You are a pest, with your preach*ing of "class hatred at such a crisis and I, a democrat and lover of civil 'liberty, tell you that the Government will be failing in its duty if it leaves you at large to publish your poisonous* and pestilential trash-. According to this nice little parish magazine—the Herald—and that single-hearted patriot, Mr Ramsay Mac Donald, and Mr Robert Smillie, and {'-Mi- J. H. Thomas, M.P., and that' noble Scot, Mr W. C. Anderson, M.P., ar.d the rest of the crowd, to call on every able-bodied man to take his part in the defence of the country and in defence of hitman liberty and Westell civilisation is to "Prussianise" the people. ■ ,

"OUR OBJECTION TO; CON-

SCRIPTION."

Let us. examine this claptrap, nor beca-use it is worthy of examination by itself, but because-it is misleading to considerable numbers of the less thoughtful among our fellow-country-men, find, above all, because it is playing into the hands of the enemy in arms against us. The Herald has written: "Our deepest objection to all conscription is not based on Cabinet tyranny, nor on military exigency, nor on pacifist conviction. It is .based c-n the,■dignity ol the human, soul and the sacred privilege of individual liberty." Now, what does this amount to, stripped of all the rhodomontade and the rhetoric ? It amounts to this—that .when the aged are threatened' with outrage, women with rape, and childiren with murder, to call on an ablebodied man to take his part with his fellow-countrymen in a common defence, to compel him to discharge this essential and elemental duty, is a negation of the "dignity., of the human soul and the sacred privilege of individual liberty." This is a proposition that never was

and never could be admitted by, any society of men that ever existea, when threatened by such external (danger: as this country is threatened with to-day. The great leader of the British Commonwealth, Cromwell, never for an instant recognised it. ■When Republican France, battling against an aristocratic Europe in arms for the Revolution,, was organised for victory by the great Carnoi> 3 ; the principles of the Revolution were, vindicated by the compulsory levee en' masse. When, more than 50 "years later, a .still vaster republic was split from top to bottom in the struggle ■for the abolition of chattel-slavery^ the great democratic leader of the North, Lincoln,, did not hesitate, liWhis immortal forerunners, to exercisecompulsion. ;

SOCIAL- FUNGUS. GROWTH

To-dfty it. does- not enter "into the' head1 oi". rvy Frenchman, living in a democratic republic, that, his individual rightsyaro assailed because1 ■ the Motherland demands the sacrifice, if necessary, tof hi& life in her- defenceIn no country in. the world1. But Engt land would this horde of Quakers,, cranks, Radical's, Little-Ehglanders,. violent pacificists, vocaJ' prof-Germaais,, and slobbery LL., Peers be tolerated for an hour.

What is there in- the mental makeup of the modern Briton which throws up this fuhgus-growth in pur social' life ? These lieople live in a world of unrealities. They imagine that the making of speeches, the passing of resolutions, are the things that matter. What enables them to make speeches and pass resolutions? . There are no popular speeches or resolutions made in Belgium to-day under the rule of yon Bissirig. What is the power that at this moment gives them the privilege of spouting and railing against the country—their country? —nothing but the boys in the trenches and the boys m the ironclads —nothing and nobody, that is, but the men, their fellowcountrymen, who are fighting fmd dying at this very moment; and thesy bleaters, these spouters, these emptywinded echoes of an echo, they don't like '''compulsion," they don't .approve of the use of force. The wealthy, obese Quaker, in his luxurious home, with his well-filled larder, his prosperous cocoa business, and his substantial banking account— hr> also does not approve of the exercise of force, though possibly he might lie shivering in his bed o' nights were it not for the sure and certain conviction that six feet oT policeman, who does not share his Quaker hesitations, is at the end of the street! What ho, there without! Oftir-p boy, quick, bring me a basin, for I feel a heaving of the stomach when I think of these creatures.

"WHY TOLERATE THESE

PESTS?"

But whatever I may think or feel about these people, I burn with indignation'when I think of the apathy of our own\Government —aye, and of the apathy of the common man in tin.street. Why do they tolerate those pfl.sts in our midst? How would Cromwell have treated them, or Danton, or old Abe Lincoln? If we are toa iscr.'.y-rjoutlicfl U) hang them, o; v

even to givel them a herd's dfeath at the end of a firing party f they rniglit at least be deported. They are useful to Germany here, tlieir proper place is in Germany; or, if there are diplomatic difficulties in transporting 'them to'the dear Fatherland, there are plenty of No Man's Lands dotted! about the ocean where they could be sent to make a little hell of their own, and to build the "New Society" without the exerciser of force. Those who would not work- would doubtless be endowed with cocoa ad libitum, and for mental pabahim the entire world's stock of Norman Angell pamphlets and Morel leaflets, plus the entire printers' stock of the Herald, might be shipped with them. Moreover, to listen to- the ravings of these men one would imagine that the moderate form of compulsion which is now to become law was tho only form of compulsion tbat Are had. More hypocrisy! If a man has to be forced to serve his country, surely it is more rational and more honest that compulsion should be based in parliamentary enactment than on the sort of coercion which has received the blessing of Mr J. H. Thomas, M.P. When men were told that it they did not. enlist they would loso their jobs, when young men were publicly insulted by thoughtless girls because they were not in khaki, when every phase of economic and social coercion was adopted to induce men to join the Army, was there no compulsion here? And! was not this compulsion the meanest and the least excusable form, the sort of terrorism whibh thousands of men*- had to endure from ignorance, from class interest, as-well as from good motives?

"DIGNITY OF HUMAN SOUL."

Speivlnjig as a democrat, I would sooner welcome the most drastic military Compulsion Bill imaginable. With such experience, for which many of the- anti-conscriptionists have made themselves conspicuously responsible, to rave against this extremely modest measure is rank humbug.

And' who are we, as Socialists and trade unionists, to object to compulsion? The whole basis of our doctrine and of our practices finds its keystone in compulsion. The blackleg objects to the coercion of trade unionism. In the name of. freedom, or, to use the language of the Herald, on account of the "dignity of the: human soul and the' sacred privilege of individual liberty." he objects to be dragooned by his- fellow-workers to'refuse acceptance of whatever wage and whatever conditions of employment he as an individual chooses to accept.

1 never thougiit I should live to see the day when Messrs Ramsay MatDonald' : and W. C. Anderson would become the chief ■ protagonists of tht> principles of the Liberty and Pruperty Defence League. Yet, precisely on the basis of the community or interest, trade, unionism over and over agaiti- has declined to recognisu this alleged right, this sacred privilege of individual liberty, and it has even been known—^tell it not in'Gath) breathe it- not in Askelon—physically to assault the individualist blackleg who thus doubtless was standing out for the "dignity of the human soul."