All – Conquering Industrialism.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 20, 21 July 1911, Page 10

All - Conquering Industrialism.

We have said that the New Zealand Federation of "Labor is the workingclass on the move. On the move, and therefore certain to prove all-con-quering and triumphant. On the move, and therefore a present roseate with hope and a future womb-like in attainment. On tho move! "With a working-class in movement towards invincible unity, drilling and marshalling itself in the inspiration of Emancipation, closing up for the common welfare through Common Ownership, already is New Zealand on the eve of New Zealand's wealth for New Zealand's workers. If anything is more positive than anything else it is that a workingclass on the move in serious perseverance andl systematic organisation must gain its demands and practicaliso its aspirations. The workers together, together victorious. Solidarity supreme ! "Let the workingclass reader of this paper get into his very soul the truism that in the moving and not tho stand-ing-still of his class is there hope, power and achievement, and never will he stay inactive. And as one in movement he will not fail to hold tight to himself the consequential truism that the aim of the Product to the Producer is guarantee of movement's soundness and straightness. "On the Move to Solidarity for Emancipation I" " When this motto thrills and sways New Zealand's unionism, unionism will have struggled to its hour and its own. Given this aspiration and this action and the fight is won. The workingclass is in the hands of its organised section if its organised section is linked up and speaks with One Voice rather than with many voices. As the w T orkingclass is Majority and as its organised section controls the majority ; as majority cannot be withstood and as linked-vup organisation in effect is the majority; thus with a "United Unionism—on the Move to Solidarity for Emancipation —the workingclass becomes Ruling Class, Top Dog, Boss (which you will) and as a result all his earnings to each toiler and tho necessary disappearance of Employer, Exploiter, Capitalist with the ending of the profits by which employer, txploiter, capitalist is upheld. All in a nutshell. "Read it over again. Outside of the N.Z. Federation of Labor and the Industrial "Unionism

for which it moves, breathes, and has I its being, there is little indication of j movement, of solidarity, of emancipation- As this important fact makes itself felt in the ranks of organised labor, the N.Z. Federation of Laboi strengthens as Hope and Herald, and in ever increasing numbers the workers listen to Federation message and accept Federation method. What is the Federation method ? It is the method of getting unions and individual workers to affiliate with it, until a network of unions and individual workers covers the Dominion, for the purpose of launching the Industrial Union thereby to insure to every w r orker the fullest and freest life possible, with all he needs for himself and home without anxiety and fear. This is so practicable .as to be the j very reason why it is alarmingly branded impracticable! Enemies of ideas don't waste powder and shot on them if the ideas are impracticable. In respect to the Federation's method the wish is father to the jeer of "impracticable" — but notice you, worker, how the country rings with denunciation of the Federation ? If an "impracticable" Federation, why this Employers' Federation as counterrevolution ? Why this Press attack ? Why this angry onslaught upon all tho Federation stands for? Aye, why? It is quite clear. It is because tho Federation of Labor has accepted method co positively practical at to make it all men's Magnet spite of its youth and its comparative smallness. What the Federation of Labor has been able to become in a few short years —and the power it has wielded as few solidly organised—eloquently attests what it may be in a few more years, and the power it may wield as many solidly organised. It is the Rising Tide. To every worker the Federation of Labor is striking object-lesson of how much better the working-class can do for itself when .united upon a common object in a common spirit than when disunited and the prey of its own sectionalism and the institutions which batten and fatten on its section alisni. It should he plain as the noon-day sun that if all the unions were banded together, acting in concert—each for all and all for each—rivetted together by a common loyalty and daring, making an injury to one the concern of all, protesting or demanding with one tongue for fifty to eighty thousand tongues, observing agreements made uniform in dates of expiry to suit simultaneous action, adhering *o one platform adopted by the referendum iof all, and ever operating with the

"Endure and dare, true heart; through patience, Joined with boldness, come we at a crowr en Girded with a thousand blessings."—Spanish proverb.

precision and solidity of mathematical law, then the working-class might do anything. Anything 1 And to do something as prelude to doing everything there is no weightier way. The Industrial Union would be its own Arbitration Court and its own Parliament—would fix its own standard of subsistence within capitalism ur-fcil rea.dy to do without capitalism. Say what men will for the Arbitration Court (as we have before pointed out) whilst that Court handles unions one at a time it can keep them sundered and tied-up all the time. What even the Arbftration-loving workers have to learn is the necessity of all the workers acting all the time for all the workers. The class!—it is' the class which is historically called upon to reign. The class I—it is the class which alone can save the craft. That which we are trying to express, the workers in increasing number ore feeling. The working-class instinct of itself would bring Closer Organisation—bring One Big Union—if that instinct was obeyed. More and more the crushers of the instinct are being thwarted : the working-class is on the move. And we would hurry it on. There is so much to be done. We urge that as rapid'y as possible the hesitating unions boldly bridge the Rubicon and join the Federation of Labor. The waterside men and the railway men these are indispensable. If they 'will but step into Industrialism, behold I the citadel is taken, is taken, is taken. All other unions will follow. Solidarity supreme. The formation of propaganda branches of the N.Z.F.L. in the chief cities proclaims the beginning of the rush that will never be checked until East Coast meets West Coast in militant fraternity, and the Federation of Labor ceases to be trades umonistic and changes to be industrial union istic in form, as it is now industrial unionistic in spirit, plan and aim. In the meantime, keep the Federation to the fore by talking of it, writing of it, working for it. The future belongs to it—and if the workers but will it that future and all it promises may he theirs here and now.