To the Children of the Workingclass.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 27, 8 September 1911, Page 12

To the Children of the Workingclass.

"THOU SHALT NOT KILL."

To the children of the Working class in Australasia, and, through them, their Parents : Boys and Girls. — You all know the story of the catspaw? Mr. Monkey wanted to get the hot chestnuts for himself without burning his fingers. So he persuades the foolish cat to let him use its paws to drag the chestnuts out of the fire. This is the way the rich men, who are too lazy to work, ami too cowardly to fight, use the poor, the working class. They are going to force even the boys to learn how to do their fighting for them!

Don't you think it a dreadful thing to kill anybody ?

Why, even if you disliked anyone very much, indeed, you would not like, you yourself, to kill them, would, you? And certainly you would not think of killing someone whom you had never seen before nor had any quarrel with.

Yet isn't it a curious thing that if a man, whose business is to kill and wound other men whom lie never had any quarrel with, is just dressed up in uniform and called a soldier, you boys and girls are told to clap hands and shout "Hooray!" Yes, and even worse than that: You boys, you merry, laughing, brave, kind-hearted lads are actually compelled to spend, to waste, some portion of your time in learning how to be killers of others. What a horrible thing! All the neat, smart suits of khaki, all the bright stirring music of the bands, all the waving of flags, all this is just to cover up, to hide, to disguise the brutal, cruel truth: that soldiers are just men-kill-ers, who, when they are told to, obey their masters' orders to kill or be killed by other men whom they never saw in all their lives and have no quarrel with. And those who are killed: their mothers weep, their wives are in despair, their poor children are fatherless and perhaps starving. Do you think, Girls, you would like to lose your Fathers and Brothers, killed in brutal war, and would you like your Brothers to become just butchers, killing other Girls' Brothers? Do you think, Boys, that you ought to learn how to make other boys and girls into poor orphans? Of course you don't. Then why are you boys to be trained for soldiers? You belong to the working-class. All the country belongs to other people—■ the greedy, rich people. That's* why you are to be made to learn to murder other workers. The rich people in different countries make all the wars, so that they can get richer by stealing from the rich of other countries. But the poor men of both countries have to do the fighting. Now, that's very silly, isn't it? Silly of the poor people, the working men and their boys, to do the fighting for the thieving and murdering rich people. You see, the country does not belong to you, or your father, or the other workers. It doesn't matter if the rich

Manifesto of the i.W.W., Sydney.

men of some other country want to take tho niches • away from the Australian rich thieves, does it? We don't get it anyhow. They take it from us, so why should we fight, or learn to fight, just to defend their property.

Vv by, do you know these rich employers mean to use you, after they have made soldiers of you. even to shoot your own Fathers and Brothers if they go on strike to get more of their own pi-oducts. You may believe this, for oinly a little while ago the British rich men did this in Wales again-st the miners. And it has been done many times. Even in Australia soldiers have been sent to • Broken Hill, to Newcastle, and other places to act against men on strike, and in Melbourne the soldiers once actually fired upon the people. The working men in other countries are making up their minds not to fight for their rich masters, so do you Boys, also, make up your minds not to fight for your rich masters. Then there won't be any wars —because nearly all the rich men are much too artful and cowardly to do the fighting themselves. So now, Boys, what aro you going to do about it? You can't, perhaps, help being trained for murder. Your Fathers and Mothers have been deceived and voted for the rich men and their servants who have brought in this vile and wretched law. But you can make up your minds that, though they may, drill You, they can't make you kill others. And you can take this leaflet home to your Fathers and Mothers and ask them why should you learn to defend the rich men and the rich men's country you happen to live in. _• And you can do more than this: you can make up your minds, and never forget that when you grow older you will be against the rich, the capitalist class, and for the poor, the workingclass. So, if your fathers are content to be wage-slaves and let even their children be taken to bo made into killing machines, you will be braver and more sensible and will take away from the rich the country they have stolen, and the factories and ships and machines and all the other things that the workers have made and the rich have robbed them of, and then there shall be no rich people and no poor people as there are to-day, but all shall have plenty and live happily. That is worth fighting for, isn't it?

Be brave, Boys. True courage is a grand thing. Bβ disciplined, Boys. Self-control is a splendid thing. Greater is he who controls himself than he who taketh a strong city. Be solid, shoulder to shoulder, a-s good comrades ought. Comradeship is noble. But, dear lads, let your courage, your discipline, your solidarity, be all for the working-class to which you belong. So shall we win the greatest victory ever known and gain the world for the world's workers. Down with brutal war! Down with the capitalist thieves and war-makers I Up with the working-class, the makers and sustainers of civilised society!