"Our Countries"

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 11, 19 May 1911, Page 5

"Our Countries"

Revolutionary Socialists have 'discarded a flag along whoso folds are blazoned in letters of gold the records of so many butcheries. Flags are merely symbols. They have no value except for what they represent. What, then, is the fatherland? What, indeed, are all the present nations? The- nations, all nations, whatever may be the etiquette of their system of government, are composed of two sets of men. one far the smaller in numbers, the other comprising the vast majority of the population. The first class is seated around a well-set table, where nothing is wanting. At the head of the table, in the place of honour, are the high financiers. Some of them are Jews—yes ; the others are Catholics; some more are Protestants; and others, freethinkers. They may be in disagreement with each other over the question of religion or philosophy, or even over rates of interest; but as against the great mass of the people they are ban-ded like thieves at a fair. To the right and left of them are -the Ministers of State, the high functionaries of the civil, religious, or military administrations, not t>o omit the general treasurers, with their 30, 40 or 60 thousand francs salaries per year; a little further around, the full Council of the Order of Lawyers, the glorious spokesmen of the Universal Conscience ; next the gentlemen of the court, and their precious auxiliaries, the solicitors, notaries, and bailiffs. The- big stockholders in mines, factories, railroads, and steamship companies,, the merchants, the possessors of castles and large estates, are all at this table; all those who own fourpence < r 're here also at the foot of the table; they aro the small fry who have, nevertheless, all the prejudices, all the reactionary instincts of the big capitalists. You, also, gentlemen of the jury. 1 must place among the number of privileged persons gathered around this table. It is not an evil fate, I assure you. In return for "work—when you do work—which is of an intellectual character, often pleasant, which always allows plenty of leisure, which flatters your pride and vanity, you get in retiirn a bounteous- life, rendered endurable by all the comfort, all the luxury which the progress of science has placed at the disposal of the favorites of fortune.

Gtistave Herve before the Jury.

Far from that table I ace a herd of beasts of burden, condemned to labour which is repugnant, unclean, dangerous, brutalising, with, neither rest nor respite, above all, with security for the morrow; petty merehante, tied down to their counters on holidays and Sundays, pressed more and more to the wall by the combinations of large stores; small land-hold-ers, dulled and stupefied by workdays 16 and 18 hours long, whose toil only goes to enrich the big brokers, millers wine commission merchants, and sugar

refiners. Further still from the tab!-© around which the happy ones of the world are gathered, is the great mass of the proletariat, whose sole fortune is but their arms or their brains, workingmen and women of the factories, liable to long periods, of unemployment, petty officials and functionaries, forced to cringe low, and conceal their opinions ; domestics of both sexes, food for exploitation., food for cannon, food for pleasure. There are your countries I A country of the present time is nothing but this monstrous social inequality, this monstrous exploitation of man by man.—Gustare Herve.