Labour Agitators.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 1, Issue 4, 15 December 1910, Page 2

Labour Agitators.

(By P. MALTHUS.) It's a queer world, as we all know, and one of the signs of its queerness is that the term ''Agitator," or "Labour Agitator," or "Paid Agitator," or " Professional Agitator," is frequently hurled at, say, a Labour Union Secretary, as a severe term of reproach, or condemnation. The President of the Farmers' Union or of the Employers Federation will tell his hearers, and the leader-writer of capitalistic newspapers will tell their readers, that the whole trouble between Employers and Workers is caused by " work-shy professional agitators,' who make a nice fat living by going about stirring up strife, and setting class against class. By which we are to understand that the members of a Union of Shearers, or Miners, or Watersiie Workers, or Slaughtermen, '«r anything else, are a lot of noodles, being led like sheep by one man, and that man their paid servant. When unionist workers read that sort of thing they must be divided between amusement at the absurdity of the proposition, and resentment at the insult to their intelligence.

Tire, the paid secretary must bsve ability and brains; a union needs the best brains it can get; but where his brains and ability are of a high order, he is sacrificing his own worldly interests by there at all; he is there because of his unselfish enthusiasm for the Labour cause ; and the same brains and ability would procure him higher remuneration elsewhere. In point of fact, in nearly all cases the Labour secretary or organiser is a hard-worked man, and honestly earns his wages, which rarely exceed a decent living standard. There are Labour secretaries in Maoriland to-day, whose brains, energy, capacity for work, and organising ability would secure them well-paid jobs in other directions, but whose unselfish zeal inspires them to give their whole services, for a mere living wage, to the Labour cause.

And there are agitators who are not paid at all; who, because of their Labour activities, often lose their jobs, or miss promotion and advancement; who keep themselves poor all their lives; and spend their energy,, spare time, and hard-earned money in working for the cause they have at heart. Labour agitation seldom pays at all, and never pays well. The great inspired agitators of this world, receive ingratitude and abuse, even from those they wish to serve. And yet they have their reward, *s Henry George realised when he penned the following:—"And then, there arises the desire higher yet, the passion of passions, the hope of hopes; the desire that he, even he, may somehow aid in

making life better and brighter,, in destroying want and sin,, sorrow and shame. He masters and curbs the animal; he turns his back upon the feast and renounces the place of power. He leaves it to others to accumulate wealth, to gratify pleasant tastes, to bask themselves in the warm sunshine of the brief day. Hβ works for those he never saw and never can see ; for a fame ; or it maybe but for a scant justice, that can only come long after the clods have rattled, upon his coffin-lid. He toils in the advance, where it is cold, and there is little cheer from men; and the stones are sharp and the brambles thick. Amid the scoffs of the present, and the sneers that stab like knives, he builds for the future ; he cut the trail that progressive humanity may hereafter broaden into a highroad." (" Progress and Poverty," Book 11., Chapter III.) But, in our workaday world, not many agitators are cast in such heroic mould. Our Union secretaries and organisers, the men who incur the sneers and abuse of the antilabour crowd, and who are given the title of " paid agitator " as a term of reproach, are simply hard-working, intelligent, and in most cases, tactful men, doing useful and necessary work in an honourable cause. Now, where does the reproach come in ? Of course, the newspaper editors, and those who are the Employers' mouthpieces, know perfectly well that there is none, but in order to gull that large section of the public that doesn't think, they pretend to believe that there is something reprehensible in a man receiving a salary from an industrial Union for doing its necessary secretarial and organising work.

The other day I read an editorial article in a newspaper, in which the writer reproaches a Labour Union organiser with getting his bread by his brains, and sneeringly asks why he doesri t take off his cc-fc *r.t\ do manual labour ? Says I to myself, " why doesn't the man who writes that take his own medicine?" It remindeth mc of a passage in Robert Blatchford's " Britain for the British," a passage that probably was more applicable to that editorial person than his remarks were applicable to the .Labour organiser:—"And the gentlemen of the Press who write against their convictions for a salary, and for the sake of a suburban villa, a silk hat, and some cheap claret, devote their energies and talents to the perpetuation of falsehood and wrong— do you call those men?" (Chapter XIV.) Now, in our workaday world, where (under existing conditions) so much dirty work is almost unavoidable, j.ethgps we must ie mors l< v.wnt than Mr. Blatchford, and not expect a working journalist to quarrel with his bread and butter for the sake of his private convictions. But on reading editorial articles containing the usual eh .-up sneers about " professio»v*l agitators," how many persons pause to reflect that those articles are written by hired advocates, " writing to order" for a salary? Not one in twenty, I think.

I remember reading, some time ago, a newspaper account of the annual meeting of one of the Employers , Federations. The President, in his report, went to some length in denouncing paid Labour agitators., hinting that they should be prevented by law from continuing their activities. Then, in the next breathy he praised the work of their own paid organiser! And nobody laughed. No, and I don't believe that one in twenty of those that read the report in the papers laughed either, or saw the absurdity. After the Canterbury Farm Labourers' dispute was finished., and the Farm Workers had been denied the benefits of the Arbitration Act, the Farmers' Union held a meeting, at which one or more speakers fiercely condemned the two men who acted in the case as the Workers' Representatives, calling them " mischievous professional agitators," or some such names, and then went on to praise the able work of the two Employers' Representatives in the case. (And the Employers' Representatives, be it noted, received much larger expenses and higher " compensations for their loss of time " than the two men who represented the workers.) And again, it is not recorded that anybody laughed!

If anyone cares to search the newspapers for instances of this sort of absurd humbug, he will find them almost every day. As I said at the beginning, it's a queer world, but the anti-labour crowd make it queerer than it need be.