The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, October 29th., 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1016, 29 October 1912, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, October 29th., 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The Federation of Labour has not many supporters among the labourers along this coast. So far as the flaxmills employees are concerned, one section is indifferent as to whether Federationists or Arbitrationists administer the affairs of the Union, another section —and this proportion represents a majority of the flax workers —are absolutely opposed to the revolutionary methods and doctrines laid down by the raucous voiced and blatant Red Fed. executive. They desire a lair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and healthy living conditions — and they believe that such conditions can be obtained by constitutional methods. The “stand and deliver” bunkum, and “to hell with agreements,” as preached by Semple and Co., and their squinting intellectual satellites, is only hardening up this section against the Federation which, in che near future, will be repudiated. For the past two years a better understanding has been come to between employers and employees engaged in the flaxmilling industry, and they recogn’se their interdependence. The interlerence of the Red Revolutionaries, however, creates a feeling of unrest which will continue until the Union cuts the painter. The other section are out-and out Red Federationists, and their headquarters are at Tokomaru. They represent a noisy minority. We are informed by a resident of Tokomaru that they carry things with a high hand there, and woe betide the employee who comes into conflict

with their views. Our informant cited the case of a young married man who, because be believed in law and order as against anarchy, was so persecuted Lh' l - he had to quit. The employ''"'' ha- bad time to rev' ■ -,:*etb -o ->£ both parties, anu as u ILO great majority, as we have previously pointed out, .are heartily sick of the extremists.

In view ot the reign ot terror sought to be instituted at Waihi by the Federation ot Labour, interest centres in a little book called “Syndicalism,” which Mr Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., has recently published. The leader of the syndicalist movement in the Old Country is Mr Tom Mann, who is the author of the publication called “The Industrial Syndicalist,” which made its appearance two years ago, and it is in reply to this publication that Mr Ramsay Macdonald has issued his book. It will be noticed how v.-ry closely the methods of Syndicalism accord with the action of the Federation at Waihi, who, as Professor Mills points out, virtually “demand that the British Constitution should cease to operate in Waihi, that Waihi should become a place where mob law and anarchy should hold sway, where the authority of the syndicalist strike committee should usurp the authority of the Central Government.” According to Mr Ramsay Macdonald, Syndicalism asks that each individual group of workers should control the instruments of production which it uses—the railway men the railways, the miners the mines, and so on. At present the syndicalist is opposed to nationalisation because the State authorities are still capitalist, and so he argues “If the railways were nationalised the workers on them would still be under capitalist conditions ; therefore I do not want the State, but the organised workers themselves, to own them.” Moreover, the syndicalist is no believer in parliamentary action, and Mr Ramsay Macdonald, as an enthusiastic Parliament man, flagellates him accordingly “con amore.” The syndicalist believes in obtaining what he demands by “direct action,” that is to say, by the general strike or a revolution. Mr Ramsay Macdonald pronounces that “the basis of [ economic syndicalism is as false as the basis of its critical philosophy”'—whatever that may mean. A rude belief m the efficacy of the bludgeon wielded by the members of each craft, can hardly be described as a critical philosophy. The essayist exhausts the vocabulary of ridicule and contempt in dealing with the syndicalists. He observes that “their fantastic programme of revolution is as likely to dominate trades-unionism as are the tenets of Joana Southcote to become the established religion of England.” Those who have forgotten, or have never remembered, who Joana Southcote was, may be hereby reminded that she was an unfortunate victim of religious mania, who lived in the early part of the nineteenth century, and gave out that she was predestined to give birth on a certain date to a second Prince of Peace. The poor creature died ol disease in the year that she had named for the great event, but until recently, at any rate, there were a few devoted adherents in England who believe that she would rise from the dead. Nobody could be more severe upon the syndicalists than Mr Ramsay Macaonald, and it may be some little satisfaction to Professor Mills and the Voice of Labour to know that their views are quite in accord with those expressed by the official leader of the Labour Socialists at Home.