Shine and Shade

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 8, 20 April 1911, Page 3

Shine and Shade

The Pc-ess is a great institution. This is a platitude, but a platitude with truth in it. The Press supplies us with the news of the world—records of crimes, politics, murders, suicides, divorces, smart-society escapades, and the thousand kaleidoscopic happenings of every day which go to make up man's "strange eventful history." Without being wise itself, the Press helps to make the man who can read wise. Underneath the froth and bubbles of the stewpot served up daily by the great engine of "civilisation" lies solid food for mental digestion. It is not literature, as food for the soul of man, this clotted mass of rags and printer's ink, but it is history, and that is on the authority of a certain Greek writer "philosophy teaching by examples." >;- -x- -x- " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." Another platitude, by that Prince of Platitudinarians, the late William Shakespeare—a dramatist who in the one point of up-to-dateness (to mention no other) is infinitely inferior to Mr Bernard Shaw. Still "there's something in it," as a candid friend once told mc when I complained of having a cold in the head. * * -* To return to our sheep. Young Dom Manuel, ex-King of Portugal, had the misfortune to be the son of his father. Not having learned a trade, he finds himself in the ranks of the unemployed —looking for Manuel labour, so-to-speak. His royal Dad was put away without the preliminary of a trial, by his exasperated subjects, who found him too expensive Young Manuel took the crown, and promised to do better than his father. The Portuguese were suspicious and kept an eye on him. They did not like his tast i in women. Manuel \

went to gay Paree one day and saw t music hall dancer who took his eye He hovered round behind the scenes kissed her hand, etc., and said she had a pretty ankle. Mile. Gaby Deslys did not feel insulted! At that time Manuel was getting a screw, and could run tc a present or two for Gaby. She had Manuel on his knees; it was not every Parisian danseuse who could boast of having a crowned head at her feet. Still she kept her head though Manuel came neir losing his. ■k- * * It was all a matter of £ b. d. with Gaby. When Manuel lost his job. she kind of lost interest in him. He was still useful though, for purposes of advertisement. Mile. Gaby Deslys became a London "idol" —a music-hall idol, for a short time. Manuel, penniless and out of work, also went to London, where somebody gave him lodgings, for the kudos of the thing. One evening Manuel's eye struck Gaby. She was sitting in the stab of a music hall. He rushed over to throw himself (figuratively) at her feet in No. 2 _ shoes. But Gaby frowned and said "Na, Na, it winna dae!" (with a French accent.) The ardent youth persisted. I grieve to say it: but truth- like murder, will out. I saw in cold print the remarkable words which follow. They haunt mc like the bright smile of the girl that left mc behind her. I have tried to break it gently:—"lt is UNDEESTOor THAT SHE TOIil) HIM TO GET WORK." ■* * * I can't find anything in the works of IG. 13. Shaw to express my feelings on the matter. But I feel sore. After all, a king is a human being, and has what we call feelings—sometimes. Gaby had no regard for the pride of this the last of the lloyal House of Braganza. I must fail back on Shakespeare. I can see Manuel—in my mind's eye, Horatio—striking an attitude a. la Mark Antony, smiting his bosom- and saying in tones of sorrow rather than in* anger —' 'This was the most unkindest cut of all." * *- * And here is a cutting from the "Clarion" to show how logical may be the exhortation "get work"— I "My baby and I were starving, and I was desperate. I walked miles over London for work, but could not get it. Sometimes I returned with nothing, sometimes with a piece of bread, and I could not bear to see my child fading away day by day through starvation, so I yielded to sudden temptation, and now I have the pangs of shame for the pangs of hunger," said a widow who was charged at Wood Green with theft. A detective said the woman was at one time "well off/ and the police 1 were satisfied that she had stolen through absolute poverty, as she and the child had been starving. The relieving officer had not helped her, and had said she ought to be able to maintain herself with only one child. * * * Thomas Carlylo said religion was what a man believed. I agree with him. Some of the good Methodists who attended the conference at Sydney hold contrary opinions. I give them for what they are worth. Thus a Mr Middleton, who does not regard local preachers as an unmixed evil. Hear him :— Some local preachers are very good men, and I'm proud of them. The Conference endorsed the preliminary observation by expressive "Hear, hears." Then he concluded: Some of them I hope never to see on earth again; and I don't know that it would add to my happiness very much if I met them in Heaven. I'm tired to death of the local preacher. Then he detailed some of the shortcomings, and referred to one who had got into a pulpit and advocated Socialism before anyone had time to stop him. * * * Would Mr Middleton have a man preach what he does not "believe?" If a local preacher taught Socialism from

the pulpit, was it because he believed in Socialism ; that Socialism was his religion ? Would Jesus Christ have made a good local preacher ? I wonder, -x- * -xA Press Association telegram from Timaru states that, speaking at the opening of the addition to the Waimataitai School, Mr J. Craigie, M.P., said :— 1 have been criticised as _, loaves and fishes member. But so long as the present system is maintained I will continue to do my best to get the legitimate wants of 'my electorate supplied under that system. Mr Craigie is an honest man. As honest as he can be, things being as they are. He is what comrade Paddy Webb would call "a reflection of the system." The game is "every man foi himself, and the devil take the hindmost." Mr Craigie is a Scotsman, and does not believe in being the "hindmost." * * -xMr David McLaren is a remarkable man. His success is due to his choice of a birthplace. He is a Paisley "buddy" and everybody (including himself) takes him seriously. Had he been born in London, he would have been looked upon as a joke. Not that that need have prevented him becoming an Ai.V., ye ken. Davie was speaking the other night at the Newtown Public Library, when the campaign of labour (with a little 1) opened. Among other things he said which some would willingly let die, was a bon mot upon which I will set the seal of immortality. Davie was complaining of the sneers that greeted him when he stood, as a working man (that is without a white waistcoat or white hat) _or the Council m ll»01. What follows is rich and rare. "If you have tears to shed prepare to shed them now." (Shakespeare again.) i-Lere it is: He assured them that, for his part, he came ol stocic that had produced a Lord Provost of Glasgow—a city which was so conspicuous for its progress. Malm, Davit, but ye're an unco croot. I thocht a' Scotsmen cam' o' a stock that gi'en iSngiand a king an' made the Breetish Jilmpire possible. Dinna be sac blate, Davit, for gin ye set owre droichy a value on yersel' ither folk are no sweert to tali' ye at yer am price. * -x- -XIn our workshops, in our unions, in our homes, keep the tune of "Solidarity" gently rising and falling. Not the solidarity of a discarded heap of mortar in a builder's yard, but the well and true laying of the stones that are to form the arch to support the future building which the workers are to inhabit. Keep to the straight line whet ther you are a block of Carrara marble, Aberdeen granite, or Oamaru stone. There is a place for all of us. But do find a place. * * -xLet thought be the master builder, not the necessity of the moment, or another individual who would have you . believe Jie can do your thinking. The capitalist press proves this self-thinking is the weak spot of the Workers. Ever true to th© class it represents and the toadies it caters for, the press gives its full pennyworth. The old heroes who fought and suffered for a "Free Press" never dreamt that their descendants would tolerate what is daily served up for their edification. Much of it has the savoury relish of a second-rate hashfoundry. In the nostrils of a thinking man or woman it brings a sigh for the crisp air of the hill-top, the life-giving gusts of the ocean-travelled wind. When once our Weekly gets going (Note thb date, May 6th), it will have the opportunity many a time and oft to act as a disinfectant and deodoriser. # -x- -xFour lines in my evening paper recently impressed mc much —just four lines. But for the tragedy of it one might write "Beauty Unadorned." As it was a tragedy we had better call

it a "Commercial Contract." I felt worse than sea-sick when reading those four lines. There was also just the same little burning anger which comes uppermost when gazing upon the mangled remains of a woman caught in mill machinery, a Waterside Worker crushed limp by a falling package, a stoker with his clothes and flesh made one mass by a down draught from a furnaoe, or, worse still, when you behold the living-death writ large m the face of a Worker at a chemical or manure factory, a silver mine, or any other trade so nicely called the bulwark of the Empire. Yes, just these four lines* — A fall of coal in the State mina yesterday afternoon entombed a newcomer named White, whose body waa only extricated at midnight after strenuous work. Columns of piffle about society, but jusrb four lines for another of the many victims sacrificed to capitalism—State caipitalism in this instance. White's comrades earned the pressman's adjective "strenuous." Note, too, how carefully is hidden almost the fact that poor White was killed. "Whose body was extricated" suffices to tell the sad tale. •» * -xMr. Loudon of the Hospital Board, Dunedin, is responsible for the following : — Some doctors were making a stalking horse of the sick and suffering for tneir ow m ends. It is a mad world! We live in a society, the very nature of which lowers the workers' vitality so that they become the easy prey of all the germs, microbes and "sich like things." Then out of the goodness of our hearts arises hospitals which serve as an outlet for the charity of the rich. Blessed word "charity." Plainly speaking, it is but the retail return by the rich of their wholesale robbery of the poor. Anyhow a doctor has to live. He is but a creature of his environment. Much as the physician may dislike it he is forced to "make a stalking horse of the sick for his own benefit," or prove himself "unfit" to survive in the struggle for existence. Under a sane state of society the doctor would be mainly occupied in preventing diseases, not trying to keep them as long as possible from proving fatal. . •x- -x- -xSee note in another column for the number of deaths the electrical coal cutting machines have been responsible for in one year in the Old Country. In 1909 there were 777 of these machines equal to 20,000 horse-power in Britain. Can't you see, even though you be not a miner what this means? Improved machinery gives no benefit to our class as a whole. "Labour-saving," they are called. In truth they are wage-saving to their owners. The men displaced enter into competition with the Workers in other trades. This produces the blackleg and the crawler. The man seeks the job and not the job the man, resulting in little or no chance to gain even mere economic reforms. Arbitration Acts cannot stop the onward march of capitalism. Think over it and you can but conclude that the only way out is by the application of the principles of Socialism through Industrial Unionism. Political reforms to be won in New Zealand are very few. We have sufficient for our purpose to set up "order" in the place of "disorder." But behind it all there is needed the driving force of an intelligent Democracy knowing what they want and how . to get it. The present basis of electing Parliament is of little use to the workers. Our Parliament is to be a Parliament of Labour representing every industry and only industry. There is the germ of this in the New Zealand Federation of Labour. One day the New Zealand Federation of Labour will supplant Parliament as we know it to-day. Practical? Being the orderly bringing together of all the workers, "what can stay it except our own follies. The Ma'orit.anb Worker is working for this. Are you?