In Our Opinion.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 27, 8 September 1911, Page 11

In Our Opinion.

AEEMAEKABLY acute object lesson of the danger of insular arbitration spectrally stares at New: Zealand workers in the shape of that London Dockers' cablegram. Had the British industrial tumult been as fierce now as it was and the "trouble" been extended to the so shores, arbitration would have necessitated wholesale damnable scabbeiry on the part of onr seamien, wharf-laborers, coal-lumpers, carters and others! If for no other reason than that the strike is international working-class weapon, and growingly so —not alone for immediate and topographical gains, but also for universal purposes —while arbitration is anti-international as well as nationally sectional (preventing, as it dees, even common local action) there should shout at us with awful significance the paralysing menace of strike-breaking, scabmaking, strike-stopping arbitration. _ A law which makes the strike penal is a law to be flouted and frxistrated by workers with brains as Avell as muscles.

nnilE Shearers , Accommodation Bill, inJL troduced by I). MaoLaren, M.P.. aims at rectifying the many weaknesses of the existing Act. The provisions gj the Bill apply to any employer who engages any number of shearers, and not to six or over, as is the case at present. Provision is also made that the accommodation shall be apart from any pigsty, slaughterhouse, dog.s, etc., and aims to compel, the employers to recognise the law of decency. Provision is also made for adequate sleeping spoce, separate rooms for kitchen and dining-room from that of the sleeping compartment, and sufficient sanitary arrangements. A clause providing for a boiler where watex , can be heated for toilet and other purposes is a necessary provision of the measure. The Bill as it stands at present covers the many defects of the existing statute, and aims to place the shearers' accommodation upon the plane of decency. It might be pointed out, ho.weveir, that as long as policemen are inspectors of accommodation under the Act there will never be any satisfaction. The ordinary country policeman has suf-

ficient to attend to at present without thie additional burden of inspector of shearers 5 accommodation being heaped upon his shoulders. In any case, the average policeman does not care about raising the ire of the squatter by adversely reporting upon the accommodation provided for employees. Indeed, it is a notorious fact that the only inspection indulged in by many of tine country police is in the squatter's parlour with a bottle of the liquid which is said to cheer.

ANDY FISHER'S condescending sermonette to anti-consariptionits on the depravity which wouldn't dance gleefully at the prospect of all the Commonwealth's sons being conscripts is a sermonette of the sort wo remember Oily Dickson (of Queensland) unctuously delivering- to the wicked Labor Parry which Andy Fisher was presumptuously marshalling against respectability, commerce, law and order, family life, and the Empiah. Wβ have a good deal of 'admiration left for Fisher (though the knee-breeches tried it sorely), and we hope he won't turn Podsnappian in the hour of his Prime Ministerial greatness. His remarks upon the Australian Socialists" manifesto "to the conscript boys'* savour strongly of the superiority which comes of soft seats and virtue rewarded. Ho ought to know better than to think he can pooh-pooh out of existence criticism of conscription; ho ought to know better than, as an answer, to present a hand airly brushing aside a working-class document with the oral suggestion that it's to be hoped undue prominence will not be given to the unpardonable heresy. Nothing is surer than that in the days to come—and presently with progressive-ly-increasing volume —compulsory ■ military training will prove the whirlwind to Australian Laboosm.

SALUTE Harry Cooke, released last, week f.rom jail. If the Government be true to itself, about 13,000 other boys and youths are to be jailed. But the Government is too cowardly to be true to itself—and it will not jail boys again until after the elections, and only then spasmodically, so as to w-par down the vigilance of the protesting people. Gcw] law or bad law, it is unspeakably dastardly that boys of pluck, spirit, and principle should be made criminals in the law's interest —more so, because if adults were touched the uproar would be thunderous. So, following the line of least resistance—over the craven path of the weaklings—we shamelessly seize on the boys; and thus the jailed boys become the glory of the nation, as proving w r e yet have sons who know how to suffer for "conscience' sake. Cooke and Cornish, Cornish and Cooke —these two publicepirited lads have im perish ably -enshrined themselves in progressive records, and from now on for many years will be lynch-pin of agitational politics.

IN "Goers Own Country" we have no poverty, "no want. We are all well provided for, peaceful and happy. There is no need for any alteration of existing , conditions, as we are all blessed with all we need. It raay be that there are a few cases like the following, but then they are not us: ""The Salvation ■Army Boys 3 Home at Eltliam is crowded at the present time/ says Brigadier Bray, 'and there are over 200 applications foo" admission, which we cannot attend to-.' The Homo, the Brigadier ex. plained, was erected for the training of destitute orphans, but not inoorrigibles. The Homo stands in a 10-acre block, which (with the Home) was presented to the Army by Mr. Jenkins, of Eltham, and there the boys a>re schooled and educated until they are able to go out into the woa'ld to fencl for themselves." Our hypocrisy is sublime.

"ODITOrMAL fairness—much less, sup-Jj-J port—in respect to the anti-mili-tarist movement is so rare an attitude of the Dominion's daily papers that it is Tinusiialiy pleasurable to draw attention to a "leaclei , ' in "West Coast Times/ exm'essing the belief "'that a well-equip-ped and" liberally supported volunteer force, coupled with the piiy-Meal training of young men, is all that is necesssry. The present .scheme was forced upon tlio people without their con-sent, and w* fee] deep sympathy for 'those who cannot see eye to eye with the military mad."" Tlw. same article well says: "The dispray or hooliganism, under the guise of farvent patriotism, which was witnessed m Cbristcliuroh on Monday, must be wfit-

ten down as a standing disgrace to the yoimg men of the- Cathedral City, and «n impeachment of their, British sense of fair play. We can well appreciate the burning spirit of patriotism which stirs the breasts of many of the youth of tine country and their consequent anxiety ro wear the King's uniform and indulge in soldiering; but we can also respect the feelings of those who have very strong conscientious scrapie© against title participation in militarism. Every man ha» a right to his opinion, and it is a poor cause which is so lacking in argument as to require recourse to brute force and ruffianism. It is no use calling a spade anything but a spade. The behaviour of the young men of Christchuroh on Monday when the Anti-Military League hired a hall for the purpose of holding a public? meeting was both utterly unjustifiable and thoroughly un-Britisli.

NEW ZEALAND youths want discipline, and plenty of it. That knocks the- anti-cpnscripti'O.nist nearer Jericho than June. Discipline means training, gaining control of oneself. In a military sense'it means training so as to lose all eelf-control and allow oneself to be completely controlled by others. The Socialist understands discipline to mean a mind so trained that it instinctively recognises right from wrong. One of "the ■effects of the so-called discipline of an army or navy is the lack of moral stamina, killed by its cast-iron methods to gain an end. That end to be the willing tool of the* master-class. Tims the_ Sur-geon-General of the United States, in his last statistical report, shows that 25 out of every 1000 soldiers and sailors are treated for chronic alcoholism, and 20 out of every 100 are constantly under treatment for venereal diseases. Give New Zealand this discipline shouted for by the capitalist robbers, and the Dominion Eugenics Society will need a daily newspaper to expose the terrible canker eating out the heart of the race.

A MUCH-NEEDED amendment to the Mines and Mining Act has been introduced by the Mines Committee to grant power to workmen to appoint workmen's check-inspectors irrespective of whether the Union is registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, as the law at present provides. " As almost every Miners' Uninn in N.Z. has cancelled its registration under the C. and A. Act, legally such is unable to insist upon the right of its own check-inspec-tors examining mines, though that right has never been questioned by the mining companies. The effect of this clause becoming law will ensure to the workmen th© right to inspect irrespective of the Act tinder which the Union may be registered. It will also obviate the possibility of any officious mining official questioning the- right of the workmen to carry out their inspection.