In Our Opinion.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 10, 12 May 1911, Page 9

In Our Opinion.

BY 77 votes to 33 Sydney Labour Council decided for compulsory arbitration and against the strike. In other words, it surrendered the Intterly-won right to refuse to toil under degrading conditions. Our forefathers p-assed through blood and fire in asserting: their right to a say in tire conditions of their work. Always the right to knock off work as a protect against oppression has been a. fundamental principle of Trades Unionism. But weakened by "Labour , legislation" and misled by their leaders, unionists "under the Southern Cross" surrender that right to strike which is the first line of their defence and the centre of their citadel. Tims doing, to strike is made a felony and a striker a ■criminal. This feloni.siug of unionism spells ruin. We are to id that "the supporters of arbitration, dubbed strikes as barbarous, inhuman and primitive." What if they are? They are the only possible outcome of a "barbarous, inhuman, and primitive , " , social system. To surrender the strike is to perpetuate such "a system . « ipENSORSHIP is in the air. Be eertain books to some extent objectionable, censorship is a remedy worse than the disease. liit it hard. It has ever meant the prohibiting of that literaturewhich spoke for reform and progress. Wherever the censorship obtains I* 1 re© Speech is suppressed. ]No man, no men, can be trusted to dictate another's in reading. Insist on the liberty to print, even if the liberty in isolated cases becomes license. .Better license than the puritanical embargo; than the measuring Avith an intolerant and bigoted iootrule the world's masterpieces. The Grundyish "Dominion" Arants purity in fiction, Avhicii means that it wants the privilege of compelling ail to. walicnv in the flabby muck it obviously feasts upon. To it H. G. Welle/ Titanic book, "The NeAv Machiavelli," is a "volume of dirt and tawdrmess." O Lord, save us from the censorship of the "Dominion." » SECTARIANISM Avas in full blast at Waihi during the municipal elections. We are credibly informed that the Orange Lodge put out a secret ticket. The handwriting on the A\ _ ali! "Smash, sectarianism or be smashed" is the lesson of history. Let the Avorkers make Aval* upon sectarianism and its sources. 4> DID we read that the- Wellington Trades and Labour Council has agreed to the sending of Single , Taxer \\ ithy before all the unions in order to Avin unionism's siipport of Henry George's economies? Wo did. Yet this Single Tax belieA-es in competition. and upholds wage-slavery. It is the refuge of ail Avho would maintain the pront>ma<kiiig system by sacrificing: landlordism to commercialism. It ie the last fortress of the dj-in,g capitalistic order. It pooh-poohs the Class Struggle and Economic Determinism. Whatever worker has been persuaded to it has been lost to the workingclass movement. . ♦ THE Bible is undoubtedly a mammoth record, but is it a true one? That is the urgent question. We have no objection to the tercentenary celebrations a-s marking the .achievement o<f tiie ."Bible's translation into English, but we haA r e a decided objection, to the lavish claims mad© for the Bible by the celebrants. Whatever be these claims, and however they be endorsed, it yet remains true that the Bible is not true. Book of genius it is in many ways —but not sacrosanct. Those who" cry "Hands Oft" in respect to it are those who had stifled. Science if they could have done so. Then again, Aye are suspicious of the current glorification as propaganda for the introduction of the Bible in the ( State schools. Watch. m WE missed the defiant note at the opening - meeting of the Irish delegate:?. Hazletoai approached nearest to it Avhen he declared the Irish would be loyal when they had something to be loyal to. Redmond was apologetic, and Donovan Imperialistic. Speeches such as these opening ones had made no Home Rule movement- Have the grit and glory departed? Is Home Rule coming because it is no longer "dangerous" ? Anyway, there has been a. noticeable decline of militancy in the Irish delegations since the. days of Dillon. "God Save the King" concluded the envoys' Wellington meeting. Shades of Emmett! ♦ — IN α-egard to the Social Revolution it is necessary to iinderstand how to effect it and what Avill b© its conseqtiencee. There is necessarily an intellectual prelude to an economic change. We a<re now in that period of intellectual unrest which portends upheaval. Aβ a. matter of fact, any time these twenty years there has Tt>een sufficient economic developtment to warrant change had the workers shown the requisite capacity. The machinery of social reform has been forged out upon the anvil of pTogress. The faith of the workers in Labour legislation has to l>e weakened. Labour politics stands aa a barrier against the intellectual advance of Socialism. Most Labour men are parasite propagandists insofar a>s not an idea or airfjuni-ent is advfunced by them but which ie of service to capitalism.