IF THE KAISER WERE BOSS

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 28 September 1917, Page 1

IF THE KAISER WERE BOSS

A STRAIGHT TALK TO SHIRKERS. [Bv Fbederic William Wile, in the 'Weekly Dispatch.'] The ~* Weekly Dispatch' goes regularly into tens of thousands of British workingclass homes. That is why 1 like to have the occasional hospitality of its columns for telling the truth about Germany. 1 want to have a Sunday morning heart-to-heart talk to-day with the men and women who live in those homes. lam going to talk to them exactly as if I were their brother. I want them to believe that I am lionest and sincere in what 1 am going to tell them. I intend to take them witli me on a flight of imagination—a flight from the uninvaded, secure Britain which, shelters us to-day into a Britain defeated, humbled, and Kaiser-ruled. Ido not need to appeal to the British workers patriotism—lie has given (and she has given, too) ample evidence throughout the war that there's nothing wrong with that, except in spots. To-day 1 mean to appeal exclusively to the British workers self-interest. We are living in troublous industrial times in these islands. Yon workpeople know that, and I know it, even though the Censor does not want its to air our

news and views in public. I am not going to discuss the merits or demerits of the controversy which has been seriously retarding the production of the munitions which our fellows afield and afloat have got to have if they are not to be wiped out. What I do want to ask you is if your class is fully alive to what would happen if we by any chance should losethe war. I know you. refuse to consider such a possibility. I know you look upon allied victory as absolutely certain. So do I. But in war, lileo in everything else, it is often the unexpected that happens. Ask any of your pals who box. Ask each, and every one of them if he has not seen a man who entered the ring "dead certain" of winning, only suddenly, unexpectedly, miraculously to be knocked out by a chance Blow from the other fellow. It is usually over-confidence" that results in a, strong man being knocked out. It is exactly the same with nations. Nations. like prize-fighters, are often caught off their guard ""through too staunch a belief in their own strength and invincibility. That is when they go to the mat and take the count.

I A GRIM POSSIBILITY. It is not absolutely impossible for Germany to win the war. We can make it absolutely impossible by throwing every ounce of our strength 'and eifort into the iob, but only if we do so. Supposing we do not. Supposing that, owing to a fatal shortage of munitions for ova' armies and our ships, we lose a really decisive engagement on land or on sea, or both. Supposing submarines—the Germans say they have 325 in service at the present moment—do accomplish the fantastic thing the Hun hopes for—i.e., our starvation. Supposing that we are reduced by military, naval, and stomach necessities to sue for the best peace we can get from triumphant Germany. Where will British trade unionism be on that dread.day? How about pre-war scales and rules and regulations in that tragic hour? I will tell you where they will be. They will be in "the soup—a dismal, slavish," humiliating, crushing soup, brewed by the merciless conqueror for , your subjugation and his aggrandisement. Have you forgotten the Germans' ghoulisli 'Hymn of Hate'? This is how its S concluding stanza reads: French and Russian, they matter not; A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot. We ' fight\ the battle with bronze and steel, \ And the time that is coming peace will seal. , You we will hate with a lasting hate : We will never forgo our hate: I Hate by water and hate by land. Hate of the head and hate of the hand. Hate of the hammer and hate of the Crown, Hate of seventy millions, choking down. I We love as one, we hate as one; We have one foe, and one alone—- , England ! Do you know what that line about " hate "of the hammer and hate of the Crown" means? It means that England is hated by > the German working classes as well as by the House of Hohenzollern. It means that not only the Kaiser i and the Crown Prince, but the working men and working women of Germany as well are inspired by a ferocious, frothing passion to grind the working classes of Britain into the dust. Do not think for a solitary moment that they will fail to do so if they get the chance. A German officer told an American friend of mine in 1914, as they were

standing on the station platform of Lou- ; vain, ihat devastated Belgium was a garden spot compared to what the German army would <lo in Kugland ! Since; then Germany has deported and tens of thousands of Belgian working men and working women, to say nothing of the myriads previously massacred. When you read the ' Hymn of Hate.' do you imagine that the fate of workingclass Britain will be any more merciful under the German conqueror's lash? It will be, in all probability, unspeakably •worse. If Germany sets foot in these islands ""she will not take the trouble to deport British workers to Germany, as she has done with the workers of Liege and Lille. She will work them here in England for "Germany's benefit. German spokesmen recently blurted out that they extort "an indemnity of 2,000

million sterling from a conquered Britain. They know quite well that there will not be that much actual cash.- in gold coin to cart away,. But they say they won't need to find the cash. British factories and mills and foundries and shipyards and mines will still be here, and also eight or ten million men and women to work them. They will produce that 2,000 million pounds by the sweat of their brows. There will not be any "dilution " nonsense or eight-hour clays or piecework claptrap or 110-night-or-Sunday-work talk then. The only "rules'' under which you will work will" be German rules. The only privilege left to you will be to do what you are told. The only "shop stewards" will be German sentries with loaded rifles and policemen with pistols and sabres at their belts. They will be the only "leaders" you will be allowed to recognise. They may permit you to hold meetings. If they do there will be armed guards on - the platform alongside the

chairman, and when anything is said that is displeasing to your taskmasters a sword will bo crashed down on the table and the meeting will be over. That is the Prussian way—even in peace time. Do you fancy it will be any different when a German .army of occupation is encamped in Middlesex, Lancashire, Clydebank, or Cheshire for the purpose of collecting that 2,000 million sterling? Believe me, 1 am not exaggerating; I am only anticipating. lam trying to make you understand what your plight would be if we come out second best in the war. We will not, we cannot, come out second best if we buckle down to the job of winning. You know without my telling you that every turn of a lathe in England means a nail in the German coffin, sooner or later. You ought to remember that every missed turn of a. lathe is a nail ~in England's coffin. It is a coffin in which you, every worker, mother's son and daughter of you, will be interred if you do not now, right now and always, get dowu to business and stay there. Victory is in your own hands. So is defeat. Which do you prefer? i