The Rank and File.

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 6, 20 February 1911, Page 14

The Rank and File.

Its Importance.

(By RUNANGA.)

In every movement for the emancipation of the worker, no matter how many your leaders, how eloquent your speakers, or how efficient your organisers, there is one thing of paramount importance, and that is your rank and file. You can do nothing of real value without an intelligent rank and file. In the past the rank and file have been indifferent to their own interests ; have believed, in fact, that the cause of the toiler was going to be won (or lost) by a few valiant leaders, a few silver-tongued orators, and a few quiet thinkers, who would lead a great, unthinking mass right on to political, industrial and social freedom. Alas ! today we know different. Your leader cannot march much ahead of the rank and file. Your orator can but talk over the heads of his hearers; and your thinkers cannot think for the mass —• they can think only their own thoughts. Already there is a great awakening, and those who have the cause of the worker at heart must see to it that the ball is kept rolling. You must educate the mass; you must use the paper, the book, the pamphlet, the rjlatform, the debating room, the lecture hall, the night school and every other educating medium you can seize hold of, and get at the rank and file, or all is in vain. Neglect of this has been responsible for failure in the past; it is because of weakness in this respect that political action has been futile in Australa in the past and may be so again. To educate the rank and file among the workers is a big task but not an impossible one. The world has seen some wonders from the rank and file. Burns was a ploughman, Stephenson minded co%vs, Edison was a newsboy, Columbus begged his way at times. These all belonged to the rank and file. It was not so much the genius of Wellington that won Salamanca and Waterloo—not so much his genius, as the efficiency, intelligence and capability of his rank and file.

It is not the pomposity of the Kaiser that has written Germany's name so large in the world's markets to-day: no, it is the cleverness of her craftsmen in every department of industry. So it will be with the cause of Labour. Yonr leaders throughout Australasia are all right, but they must be backed up by intelligence among the body of the workers themselves. Great and momentous issues are before the representatives of Labour all over the wo~rld to-day. The next quarter of a century is going to see wonderful changes in society, and in it all and through it all the worker is going to have more to answer for than any other class., and it behoves him to seriously think of fitting himself for the great work before him. Again I say he must educate; and those who are in the van of thought to-day, who champion the cause of Labour in our midst, 'tis yours to see that your less intellectual brethren are instructed. You can do nothing with ignorance and indifference. These left the cause of Labour just where it is. Personally, I am hopeful. Already the dawn is breaking, the clouds are rolling away, and a better social and industrial day is at hand for the world's millions of workers. The mass is reading and thinking., and if this movement, properly directed , goes on. we shall have no difficulty in building up industrial unionism here upon these shores; we shall have no difficulty in federating with our toiling comrades across the seas; we shall realise the international consolidation of Labour, and we shall hail without fear the complete emancipation of Labour from Capitalism and the day when Labour shall rule the world.