Thirty Years Ago.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 25, 25 August 1911, Page 18

Thirty Years Ago.

By W.C.S. I do not remember beginning to be a. Socialist. I seem to have been a Socialist always. My earlier essays in Socialism may have- beeii >a bit hazy, but/it/was Revolutionary Socialism nevertheless. ■ . .. ; - : *:- * • It is just upon thirty years, ago that ; I had my first .actual experience in Socialist effort. It was brought about by a strike-' of iron-workers ' oin the Clyde. There have been many labor strikes since then, but witih none have I realised the bitter humiliation I experienced at the non-success of this ■ great strike. • * * ■ m I was the representative of a Glasgo' daily at that time, ■'■and I felt the responsibility of taking an active part in my first strike. My instructions were, to give "a fair report and no favour," and to slash my hardest elsewhere. Needless to say, I took the fullest advantage of those instructions. "• ' ■ w w . • . - Let mc here and now disavow all admiration for the cowardly ti'aitors who broke the strike, and slunk back without so much as a single effort at compromise. Had we gained the slightest demand, it would have been something, but the bosses completely swept the board. ' : .■•■•.: . ,* -■•" * . *" • The directors, were jubilant. The -"Jim Farley's ,,, were reinstated, , and, the -superintendent" called the men together—about .700 of them—and delivered the speech which I reported and have never. forgotten.', This is what Fat told the inane and insane fools whom he gulled. '■,'..-.- ---"I am glad you have come to your senses. ... You must be_ worse than mad! to listen to paid agitators. How credulous you all are to believe yoii are at all times, : ; and und-er. a<ll circumstances, the despoiled and downtrodden victims of your employers' insatiable ' greed. . . .In consequence of this pernicious belief you have alyourselves to become beasts'; debilitated and besotted, and you have levelled : every execration' atr everyone tetter than. . yourselves, and everything that has "made you so. - Don't be misled again, by frothy and dangerous agitators. They pick up the verbiage of all spbut£>rs and agitators; of labor. . . . : ; Avhose • sole : end and ambi-; tion is to filch an adequatesalary from your pockets. These"agitators are contimially, flashing the workers to open revolt against what they choase to call capitalist tyranny and exploitation of the workers." . ; . .... ..»,... Just--think--of-it! Think of the excruciating impudence of all this! The worker is besotted, debilitated, bestial, and all that is execrable because he dares to realise he is the down-trodden victim of capitalist insatiable _ greed y And, come to think of it, the capitalist is as great a villain and as big a liar as he was then—and is now. But listen: ■•••*•.. * * "We will always find plenty of men ready and glad to' accept our terms. . .* .- They have as much right to sell their labor for what they can get as you have a perfect right to decline it. r -.- . . Yon have a right to refuse to work for us on our terms, and they have an equal right to enter 'oiif service .and accept our wage. :■ Wβ Jiave responsibilities . * . ; and we are masters here. . . . This is our propertj', and you have no place in it.- It is ours "to do with it just as we'list, and riot as you demand us to do. We. can fill our 'works' or empty them as we require." * * * .. . : That is a fragment of a speech 1. was called upon, to report more than 30 years ago. ' There -is nothing -new .in it, is there? It is the same old.story, told" in the same old way and the same gullible story-that we find to-day. But the dawn is approaching, and the full light will come. The capitalist is beginning "to realise that his doom is sealed,, and the indisputable right is no longer indisputable. .- Thirty years ■have, brought about a change and although"theYe are divisions in, the field, and scabbery is still very much in evidence, the Social Bevolutioai .has .come. to. stay. The workers are steadily moving, on to assert themselves. . is dying. It is not ; scabbery, : but sectional ■ linao.n.ism that is keeping it. alive now.' What then ? ' ' Just this, and only this, industrial organisation of the workers the ready hope. Labor must emancipate, itself ; it must reorganise society on the basis of labor. We cannot hope for this while the forces of-government are in the hands of the rich. We must, therefoire, wrest these forces from the hands of the rich, by peace'if feasible, by force if needs be. Line up for all you are worth.