BEN TILLETT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3776, 5 October 1907, Page 3

BEN TILLETT.

“ Call me an extremist; call me an agitator; even call me a dangerous person—l wish to God I were. I want to make you rebels. The people are too dull to be extremists. I believe if you were only such agitators as I am there would be a change.” That was the keynote of Ben Tillett’s wild denunciation of the capitalist class and passionate appeal to the workers to “ close their ranks,” in His Majesty’s Theatre, Wellington, on Thursday night. Had the workers present closed their ranks, the Dominion says, the theatre would have looked very empty. Mr Tillett declared that no man could become rich, except through others who worked for him. In Wellington. he said, there were close upon 2000 little babies done to death for the want of proper care, knowledge, and nourishment. He drew a melancholy picture of the drab life of the constant toiler. No worker could be an independent man under the capitalist system, because the capitalist owned everything. He instanced the confederation of workers’ unions in England, Europe, and America, and urged that the same policy should be followed in New Zealand. The time was coming when they would have to close their ranks in defence of their own in terests.—Poor little Ben!