PRACTICAL POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1142, 4 September 1913, Page 4

PRACTICAL POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

EVOLUTION V. REVOLUTION.

An Appeal to Wageworkers and Employers, to Capitalists and Professional Men, to Exploiters and Exploited. [By George Foweds.] 111.

Further evidence, if further evidence be needed, of the revolutionary character animating the Congress Committee and their supporters, was afforded by their repeated refusal to allow any modi ■ fication whatever of their strike clause, which declares that: — “ The United Federation of Labour will employ the strike weapon, local, general or national, whenever the circumstances demand such action. In the event of a lock-out or authorised strike the full strength of the United Federation of Labour shall be at the call of the National Executive in support of the section affected.” Compare with this the strike clause of the United Labour Party, which expressly provides—‘‘That no union or federation of unions shall be required to conttibute specially to, or join in, any strike'without first securing by referendum the consent of a majority of its members.” Every attempt to modify in this direction the committee's strike clause was bitterly opposed and heavily voted down ; and it thus became only too clear that the real object of the Congress Committee in putting this undemocratic, despotic, and dangerous power into the hands of a small executive of a dozen men was

TO FORGE A STRIKE WEAPON that could readily be used for the purpose of industrial action on sheer revolutionary lines for ‘‘direct action,” iu short, to use a phrase that was often on the lips of the extremists.

If this was not the real object of the committee and their supporters, they could have readily granted the concessions required to secure effective unity—(r) the proper safeguarding of the strike clause, by providing that, not a small executive of a dozen men, but the union members themselves should decide whether or no they should take part in a strike, and (2) the abandonment of the shibboleths of LW.W.-ism.

But, of course, if the committee were out, not for unity but for revolution, they could not possibly afford thus to modify their strike clause, nor would they be disposed to abandon their I.W.W. shibboleths.

In spite of the significant withdrawal of the president and executive of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the committee consistently relused to make any concessions whatever on these points. Small wonder, then, that the Jongress over, the United Labour Party in conference assembled, declared emphatically and with practical unanimity the vital necessity for the continued existence of the party as a rallying ground for the great

SANE NON-REVOLUTIONARY MAJORITY

of the workers of New Zealaud ! Small wonder that in their manifesto, issued over the signature of their president, the Hon, J. T. Paul, M.L.C., the Dominion Executive of the United Labour Party contend that —

“The attitude of the Federation ot Labour delegates amply proved that they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The experience of the past two years has taught them no lessons. They believe as firmly in the strike policy to-day as of yore, and appear to be only anxious to extend that policy to every field of industry.” “We declare,” adds the Dominion Executive, “that the conferring of autocratic power by the new constitutions on the national executive is undemocratic and antagonistic to the best interests ot the labour movement. The filching of control from unions and Labour Councils must necessarily act detrimentally upon the interests of the workers and must ultimately bring about disastrous results Irora which it will take many years to recover.

“ We declare emphatically against the power given to the new organisation to call unions out on strike. We say that no executive should have power to involve unions in a strike against their will. The unions must, in our opinion, be masters of their own

business. The United Labour Party stands solidly for that principle.” ,

THE PROFESSOR ON 1.W.W.-ISM,

Writing in the Weekly Herald, Wellington, on April roth, 1912, on the occasion of the Easter Conference of that year which gave birth to the United Labour Party, Professor W. T. Mills said :

‘‘There has been an effort, not made by the New Zealanders themselves, to capture those large unions whose strategic position gave them very great power, and to use that power through their joint capacity to paralyse industry, to secure by compulsion advantages for themselves to the utter neglect of the workers less fortunately related to the whole life of the country. If you will call the roll of the spokesmen among these people, you will discover that those who represent the plans and programmes utterly repudiated by the Labour movement in Australia, in Great Britain and in the United States, are themselves men recently come from these countries, and are earnestly striving to reestablish here schemes which have utterly failed on their own hands in those other countries.

“The reason why these men have made such a determined assault on me and upon my work here is solely because, notwithstanding their most earnest requests that I should do so, I felt, on coming to this country, bound not to identify myself with their work but to instead identity myself with the life and the institutions of this country and to aid, so far as I might be able, in the furtherance of rational proposals under the guidance of those holding the confidence of the country in the direction of industrial and political progress.” THE WORST ENEMIES OF THE WORKING CLASS. “The programmes they advocate here have been on trial elsewhere and have always collapsed, and must always collapse on the hands of those who promote them. Direct action is in every country in the world the watchword of propertydestroying, bomb-throwing Anarchists. There is nothing to be gained by avoiding the issue. Syndicalism, direct action, anarchism are the worst enemies of the working class. They have caused immeasurable barm wherever they have gained power and influence among the workers. There is no use trying to unite ‘barn builders’ and 'barn burners’ in the same company for building purposes.” THE DESTROYERS. “This is the reason why the Unity Campaign has sought from the start to make its appeal to the rank and file of all the. workers, not to make bargains and compromises with destroyers under any misleading illusion that destroyers, who have exalted a passion for destruction into a superstitutious conviction that the best things in human lile can be built on the worst passions of the human heart can render any desirable service in the cause of labour here or anywhere.” These words were true then. They are just as true to-day. Would that we could say the same of Professor Mills himself. Unhappily, he has neglected his own warnings, he has himself been “captured” by those he so vigorously and so justly denounced. And so he passes from the United Labour Parly to the United Federation of Labour, from the evolutionaries to the revolutionaries, from the “barn builders” to the “barn burners.” R.I.P.