UNIONISM OR ANARCHISMWHICH?

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2818, 2 December 1924, Page 4

UNIONISM OR ANARCHISM—WHICH?

THE RIGHTS OF THE PUBLIC. What is now taking place in connection with the Shipping industry in Australia, where the methods of irritation strikes are being applied to the serious injury of the trade of the country, should prove a lesson not merely to the people of the great Commonwealth but to our own people as well. The direct action policy is being put in force in ways which make thinking people ask “is this Trade Unionism or is it anarchism?”

Here is a country where political labour ostensibly stands for Arbitration but a large class of Industrial Labourites (who are in the political Labour Parties) by their actions insjst on war rather than peace.

Socialist Labourites and others point to Australia and declare that, it furnishes proof that Arbitration does not ensure industrial peace. Yet we find that many of these people who dispute the value of Arbitration- in the industrial field want their country to rely solely on arbitration for the settlement of all differences. “Ho more war” as an ideal we subscribe to as ip every way desirable but we wish to see it applied to the social and industrial affairs of our country as well as in the relations of natiins.

We have doubted, and still doubt, the sincerity of socialist advocates of “no more war.” They pose too much as if they help a monopoly of peaceful intentions. At the same time these people substitute militancy against the-public hi teres! for their professed pacifism when it comes to the matter of dealing with industrial issues.

The attitude of class antagonism is war and not peace. The standing of “our way or industrial chaos” is warfare beyond all question. We shall be told that it is Unionism which is at stake in Australia. What kind of Unionism is it ? Is if a free and voluntary Unionism or that which is tyrannic, dictatorial and has no consideration for the rights of others. We have the news that ships are declared “black" and some Unionists forced against their wills to obey the bohest,s of the would-be all powerful Federation. In this struggle the irritation strike authorities show no eonsidei ation for the returned soldiers and sailors who fought for their country, and incidentally saved these very strikers. Surely these ‘•returned men” have ;i right to form a union of their own when they so desire. They have done and have..worked along peaceful

ays. We have never heard of them making attack on any other Union. If workmen in Sydney choose to go to work through a Labour Bureau, bat is jointly controlled by employers and employed, in a free country they should be allowed to do so. It is a Unionism of dictatorship which is seeking to deny the rights of others to choose their own methods in a peaceful way. When it comes to consideration of the public tin repeated, irritating and unreasonable strikes partake of the character of anarchy. In practice the strikers virtually say “we care nothing for the public, the loss of caI ital, the forcing up of costs and prices ami the individual suffering of workers' l amilies” —that is a selfish attitude which may justifiably described as “black." In England tho Commonwealth of ’ ustralia has been referred to as the country “where Labour rules.” 1: certainly has had more Labour Party Governments than other parts of the Empire. What becomes of the plea put forward by the Socialists in England and elsewhere that the way to bring industrial peace is to place “Labour” in power. The catchy will not stand examination.

It is true to-day as il never was before that what is commonly called “Labour” is not labour proper at all. It is a school of political socialists using the masses as instruments to force their wills on the nation. The rights of the public do not come in with those who are thus obsessed with their class and party idea.- Their movement becomes to them everything there is. With national Trade Unionism there is ground for reasoning and sympathy, but with the false Unionism- that knows nothing but its own selfish interest, or the Unionism of the I.W.W. school, which leads towards

mbofage and violence, all Society can do is to defend itself. (Contributed by the N’.Z. Welfare League).