LABOUR DIVIDED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1069, 13 July 1912, Page 4

LABOUR DIVIDED.

(To the Editor.)

Sir. —Please allow me space in which to indulge in a criticism of Labour as present divided, which they have helped to bring about themselves, by refusing to recognise the power they have, preferring to be divided among themselves, instead of helping to solidify their ranks and work together for the common good of each and all. Separation of craft from craft renders industrial solidarity impossible. While encouraging these outgrown divisions among the workers the capitalists carefully adjust themselves to the new conditions. They wipe out all differences and present a united front in their war upon Labour. Through employers associations they seek to crush, with brutal force, by the injunctions of the judiciary and the use of other powers, all efforts of resistence. Or, when the other policy seems more profitable, they conceal their daggers beneath the association and hoodwink, and betray those whom they would rule and exploit. Both methods depend for success upon the blindness and internal dissensions of the working class. The employers’ line of battle and methods of warfare correspond to the solidarity of the mechanical and industrial concentration, while workers still form their fighting organisations on lines of long-gone trade divisions. The industrial battles of the present emphasise this lesson. It shatters the ranks of the workers into fragments rendering them helpless and impotent on the industrial battle field. Union men scab upon union men, hatred of w orker for worker is engendered, and the workers are delivered into the hands of the capitalist helpless, and disintegrated. Previous efforts for the betterment ot the class have proven abortive, because limited in scope and disconnected in action. Universal economic evils afflicting the working class can be eradicated, only by a universal working class movement. Such a movement is impossible while separate craft and wage agreements are made favouring the employer against other crafts in the same industry, and while energies are wasted in fruitless jurisdiction struggles which serve only to mrther the separation in which the employer reaps the benefit to the determent of the worker who assists him. One word in conclusion : I should like to bring under the notice of the workers, a scheme which brings within its ranks ot workers, a class of exploiters, who have nothing in common with the workers, but see fit to prey on them at every available opportunity. Look before you leap or you may widen the breach at present in the ranks ot the workers of this country. — I am, etc., E; G. Martin, Secretary Foxton Waterside Union.