THE MISSION OF THE WORKING CLASS

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 8, 20 April 1911, Page 10

THE MISSION OF THE WORKING CLASS

Trades Unionists of last century possessing the ideas of their brothers of ancient Greece and Rome saAv little beyond just their immediate necessities. It could hardily be otherwise. Even today, Avhen none of us have to attend a night-school to learn the alphabet, there are many of our fellow Unionists who look upon their Unions only as a means to prevent inroads by the employing class upon the position aa t oii in the past and maintained in the present. A limited number may look beyond this, but a struggle for slightly improved working conditions and a few shillings' per week more wages is as far as their thoughts ever take them. This need not bo wondered at amongst those Avhose life is one continual round of toil interAVoven Avith the soul-killing fear of being unemployed. But with others the case is different. With some noble exceptions, even to-day, many of the officials of Trades Unions are still plodding along the same old groove, failing to notice the gigantic developments of modern machinery and the far-reaching influence the world over of the concentration of capital. Take* for instance, the glass-bloAving trade of America. In the year 1888 the Workers, through a well-organised Union, gained a great victory by striking. As a result their Union increased in membership and finances. Up to 1907 all went better than well. Shorter hours, increased wages, and the enforcement of absolute stoppage of AA r ork during three months of the year. A big enough cheque Avas earned to enable them to regain some of the vitality lost at their very exhausting Avork. Generally speaking, they got good food, good clothes, good housing; gave their children the same,

and sought a better education for them. Their wives had no pinched faces with the wolf-hunger burning in their eyes— the hunger for food, rest, and a break away from the daily drudgery of the home. Who would not be one of these aristocrats of labour? But—but in 1911 their security no longer exists. Wages have .alien anything between 20 and 30 per cent. Work lasts all the year for the lucky few who can get it. The unlucky ones, no longer the "aristocrats of Labour," are making the berths of the general labourers less secure. What has their Union been doing? Protecting its members from the greed of their bosses.— not trying to help along the coming of conditions that Avill make greed impossible to exist. And to-day in the glass works is installed a worker who never "points," never sleeps, never ! loses a quarter, never gives back answers, never joins a Trade Union, never agitates and never strikes. In fact, it is the ideal "scab," and the creation of a one-timed glass-blower. The Owens Bottle Machine eats the raw flint, .melts it, digests it, and vomits forth bottles at the rate of__3 a minute. Tractable, smooth tempered, and oh! so willing that even a stern man is not necessary to keep the machine going. Just a few youths and one man, and it rains bottles. The Mission of the Working Class, say you ? W hat has this to do with it V Much. Through all the past ages men neither good nor bad, nave ueen at work to point out what a goodly number of us are beginning to see at last. We want all WorKers to see it. That is why "The Maoriland Worker" was started, Avhy Aye want you to push our, and your paper everywhere throughout New Zealand. The Mission of i.ur Class is to pertect the freedom we have already obtained, iviother Nature is no longer a cruel tyrant as of old. Little By little Aye have bent her here, used her against herself there, till at last she is our very obedient servant. But the work of our brains, the labour of our hands, and the skill of our bodies produce terrible monsters that rend, starve and kili us simply because we who work these machines do not own them ; allowing those to own them who do not work them. The Workers are the slaves to their oavii creations. The Mission of the Working Class m to rid themselves of their own slavery, and place it upon that Avhich tan &i:ed no tears, feel no heart pangs, have no empty stomachs, and never know the madness wrought by wrong. Let the dead, cold, grey iron toil in slavery. Humanity yearns to-day stronger than ever did the first free-born savage to forced labour bent 3 for the emancipation of the last class—the Working Class. That is our Mission..