THE STRIKE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1175, 22 November 1913, Page 4

THE STRIKE.

OPEN LETTER TO STRIKERS

“Jimmy Startup" writes as follows to the Wellington Post : “Oh, you Watersiders ! You truckers, you dumpers, you hatchmen, you bullropetneu, you trimmers, you cranedrivers, you stackers, you wiuchmen, you jigger drivers, you men of the ‘donkey room.’ A month’s gone by, and the ‘dollars’ too- Oh, you old-timers! Jack Currie’s ‘own,’ Jelly’s ‘dandies,’ Sinclair’s ‘beauties,’ Glennie’s ‘Jambs,’ Wadley’s ‘try-outs,’ Thompson’s ‘diehards,’ Jimmy Smith’s ‘selects,’ you of the ‘mosquito’ fleet, oh, you black diamonds under‘Attwood’s.’ Oh, you lions led by asses ! Where are you gangin’, men ? Poor old Young (where’s his phantom army ; be couldn’t scrim a bale), then Semple (he never used a hook), fiery Holland with all his small talk (he couldn’t lake a bull rope or oil a blooming screw), and then Mr Hickey (who talks about Hell), he couldn’t work a .reezer for fear of the smell. And then the ‘professor,’ the contortionist (he couldn’t bust a band, heave on a ‘dolly,’ or tie up a strand), Are these your leaders, men ? Have you heard from Torn Smith (he’d tell you to go back and ‘get into it’) ? Have you heard from Davie M’Laren (ask him to lend you a ‘hand’) ? Oh, you bruisers standing out of your jobs, not because you want to, but you’re in iear of the ‘nods.’ The ‘Red Feds’ have bled you. Where’s your money, men ? What’s the use of working for a ‘cause that does not need assistance, nor wrongs that don’t want resistance ? What are you out for, men ? Are you out now for principle, or to save the ‘Red Fed's’ face ? You have kept too many non-working leaders with your funds- Gel back to work ; gel into it ; use your hooks, and don’t be bled any more by the ‘Red Fed’ rooks.’’

NOTES

That “be a man” in the opinion of the strike committee means knocking off work to lean on some other man. It’s topsy - lurvy heroism, says the Auckland Observer.

Maoriland, under the influence of the I.W.W, (Independent Workers ot the World), has an industrial trouble ou hand which involves more conversation than any other trouble with which it has been afflicted for nearly a feneration. The I.W.W. is a sort of international organisation of industrial anarchists, and it sees red all the lime. Through seeing red too long its head has apparently taken fire. It is allied with all manner of downtrodden people in remote lands, and it uses their form of language, just as if Maoriland were bossed by a Czar or over-run by Macedonian brigands. Possibly it lacks a sense ot proportion, or of time, or space, or something. In short, the I.W.W. represents the irrecon-ciliables-lbe rebees of the hills. Its motto is : “To Hell with agreements,” and that makes negotiation with it difficult. Por a country which owes so much mouey abroad, and which must keep on exporting wheat and wool and meat and covvs’-skins and bulls’-innards and ox-tail and rabbits and pigs’-trotters in order to pay the interest bill, the partial stoppage of trade is serious. Amid all the clamour aud the shoutiug it is rather difficult to understand what the row is about, but it is a nice row to contemplate from a distance. —Sydney Bulletin.