Page 9 Advertisements Column 1

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 14, 9 June 1911, Page 9

j In Our Opinion. _ii__*> W» —|

THERE is a chance to down conscription if its haters get on a hustle. It is a tremendously-important issue. It* wo are interested in the coming' of the Social K'evolutioii —wlien* all will work and each get what lie earns, easily equivalent to J£s to -210 per week at least —look round, and see conscription and militarism holding- back working-class ascendency in every coimtry. Soldiery xitilised against strikere, against democratic demands, against the -people, in Germany, France, Italy, America. It is conscription which is giving Capitalism a lengthened lease of life- Conscription in New Zealand may add decades, perhaps centuries, to tho reign of Production for Profit. Without conscription, Capitalism will the sooner be defeated. This is a solemn thought. Had the Chartists succeeded, the Charter liad been gained then for all time. They failed, and the Charter isn't gained yet. And they could have succeeded. Every generation has its responsibilities and poweas, reaching into the eternities. Posterity is not made by posterity, "but. by ancestry. An effort unmade, aud for lack of it, of times punishment ag*e-long.

CO'NSCKIPTION is for capitalism. All militarism is. Citizen soldiery is. Your citizen .soldiery of Switzerland shoots down strikers. Remember Veney and Ricken. lieed the great railway strike in France last year, when men in their working clothes could strike but in their soldier clothes had to scab. The Worker emphasises that N.Z. may swing into working-class liberation very rapidly if it keeps out of tho country compulsory training for compulsory service. Otherwise, we say, capitalism may get a fresh and stabler grip upon custom and law. This is all in agreement with our own idea of this being the day of capitalism's ripening. But deaths are sometimes slow, if sure- Feudalism met its end in Japan comparatively recently—2o years back. It died in France a century earlier, and in England two centuries earlier. It might have lasted in England and in France-, and elsewhere, as in Japan. Something shortened its life in the one case; something lengthened its life in the other case. Capitalism is ripening—yet, in keeping- with evolutionary lav,', its ripening may merge into rottenness and its rottenness stain and stink for generations. In Maori-land, a terrific effort now and on to the November elections Avill kill eonscriotion. Effortless pessimism, inert cynicism—and eoii-sc-ription prop of Capitalism with."* demoniacal laughter.

QTAMP heavily upon the Coronation I**-? 1 lie. It is rife. And say what you will for Andrew Fisher, Prime Minister of Australia and confessed Socialist, still no Socialist party of the world can condone a Socialist's participation in Court ceremonial and monarchical manifestations. In knee-breeches too! Besides, it's a curious national sentiment which gets itself made booster of Imperial sentiment- There are those in New Zealand who howl for a national sentiment, and these also yell an imported national anthem and oan J t get away from "Britons never sliall be slaves' ! National fudge. A true national sentiment must be Republican. But we started to dii*ect attention to the "specially enlarged Coronation and Empire number" of the "School Journal/ An apotheosis of Kingship, whose infallibility all school children must endorse. A wishy-washy mind-rotter, placid and flaccid brainpi -her, specious kncebender. A glorification of Crawl, calculated to unnerve Young New Zealand in the crisis and make Avorkers' sons and daughters perpetuatorw of their parents' sorrows and sufferings.

A WORD of applause for the Christchurch Baptists who believe in the Word and want to practice the "Thou Shalt not Kill" they preach. Let thenkeep on in their peace crusade —a peace crusade which is not sheer cant and hypocrisy. They will not be bullied and brow-beaten by well-to-do College students, surely? Sectarianism isn't eliminated from compulsory enrolment —don't forget. It is a devilish device to generate a hatred that it is hoped will spread to the industrial and political domains. Sectarian Conscription—God what ARE we at? Ever read Thoreau's " Civil Disobedience?" In the abstract, a ''Dominion" scribe worships at its shrine. But the brave man will elect to practice what the coward merely theorises over.

*«yVEFENCE/' yes—but the defence -*L-' which consists in promoting the well-being and happiness of the people, and in emancipating the woiking-claes. Not the Jingoistic "■defence" of tho conscriptioiiists. Emancipate the workingclass, and Military Defence will be where Slavery and Witchcraft are. People once believed these and - other horrors to be as necessary as the fooled people believes "Defence" to be. A working-class party ought to know that warfare is no longer national, but commercial —for Trade and Capitalism—and that for the waking-up worker the basis of conflict is no longer racial but CLASS. The only wax Avorth carrying on and promoting and engaging in is the Class War. The fundamental work of the men and papers and Parliaments created and controlled by the Labor Movement is guiding the Class War to victory, thereby to secure to every man, woman and child enough to eat and to spare by abolishing WageSlavery.