The Charlantry of Conscription

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 31, 6 October 1911, Page 16

The Charlantry of Conscription

By GHAS. W. GREEN (Aus.).

We Avill speak out, Aye Avill be heard, Tho' all earth's systems crack; We Avill not bate a single word, Nor take a letter back. Let liars fear, let coAvards shrink, Let traitors turn aAvay; Whatever Aye haA-e dared to think, That dare Aye also say. —J, R. Lowell. These few lines epitomise the virile spirit back of the anti-conscription crusade. The unionists of tho Commonwealth are face to face with the most damnable coercive legislative measure that ever disgraced Australia's politics. No Conservative or Liberal Party ever dared to shackle the liberties of our rising manhood Avith a child conscription law. It Avas left to a gang of political mountebanks called Laborites to clinch this measure. They have made it law, and their precious law is being administered by tinselled and tasselled popinjays of loav mental type. It is a capitalistic IaAV covered by a thin veneer of "democratic" subterfuge. We challenge its integrity. As unionists Aye vieAV all measures and laAvs entirely from a A\orking-class standpoint. Economic facts and factors shoAv conclusively that in the violenco .of class antagonisms the Avorking-class is ahvays right so long as it fights and exposes the intrigues of organised capital. The most potent and menacing intrigue of capitalism is the militarist intrigue. In different countries it has taken different forms, but its specific form has ahvays adapted itself to the best needs and interests of the ruling class. Thus, a country comparatively and sparsely populated will spread a wild cry for "defence," and a first-rate PoAver will prepare for aggression. In this way the intriguing international capitalist class plays its cards and fools the Avorkers. The particular militarist policy of a country deA T elops accordingly as its internal and external affairs and its exigencies dictate. Here, conscription; there, citizen soldiery; elsewhere, a regular army. Back of any and all of these policies lies capitalist constitutions and a ruling faction that use these institutions as the physical custodians of their economic poAver. So soon as avo stoop to pick and choose between these militarist schemes we enter the battle ground of capitalist politics. But avc must oscheAv capitalist politics. Wo must challenge its whole paraphernalia Avith proletarian politics. We have got to_ let the fact sink home into our minds that all and all preparations for wars in time of peace under all pretexts are the life-markets of our class enemies. As the result of. the last half-cen-tury's capitalist.politics, there has developed in every nation an inordinate increase of armaments and of the jingo spirit. This jingo spirit has been deliberately cherished and systematically fostered by the statesmen whose politics were but the political reflex of ruling-class economic interests. Mechanical inventions and - scientific discoveries instead of bringing to all peace and plenty, haA'o been dedicated to the Avar god. More of the product of labor has boon lavished for military pur-

poses than for science. The fact that all Europe groans beneath the iz'on heel of militarism is the direct upshot of the intrigues of the political wardens of capitalism. Behind the politics of the last GO years has stood the capitalist Avith his schools and pulpits and ."ncAvspapers. These politics have materialised in the monstrous present day paraphernalia of Avar, the Dreadnoughts and torpedoes, tlie fortifications and batteries, and the A-ast army of 20,000,000 men on a territorial Avar footing, and a military expenditure of £260,000,000. This military development has gone on, mark you, despite the groAving protest from intelligent class-conscious Labor. Time and time and time again has militarism in all its manifold forms shown itself to be the buhvark of industrial despotism. And as Labor has fallen back crushed and bloody it has felt more and more grimly that this militarism functions entirely as a capitalist instrument to doom and damn its aspirations and ideals. Thus Labor is up again militarism in all its forms and phases. I speak of class-conscious Labor in Europe, in America, aye, and in Japan. I speak specially of the Labor movement that signalises the conscript countries. But I must bar the Labor Party in the land of my birth and adoption —Australia. Here— and I blush Avith shame as I Avrite it— the organised labor of this continent has been kicked and side-tracked by the most spiritually depraved set of scheming political shysters and canting opportunists that humbugged the proletariat. Instead of carrying forAvard the propaganda of proletarian protest against militarism and capitalism, they have seemingly forgotten and positively forsaken the Socialistic principles Avhich they exploited and builded on, and interested themselves exclusively with the idea of side-tracking issues of Labor's foes. In Europe the issue is Socialism A-ersus Capitalism, the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie. Here there is no straight-out issue betwixt Liberals and Laborites. Politics has become a hollow mockery and of ghastly pretence. The legislation proposed by both parties is almost identical. TAveedledum versus TAveedledee. that's the issue in Australia. And we Socialists are called nasty names because Aye won't plunge into the thick of this political sham and work and A"ote for a Fisher, a Hughes, a Thomas, or a Pearce. Yet these gentry are responsible for placing upon the Statute Book of Australia the blackest infamy that blots its pages—conscription laAvs that Labor in Europe is fighting and that are used to fight Labor are to curse this continent. No Conservative or avowed plutocratic party is responsible for this blight. A Labor Party that .never consulted its backers placed it there. A Labor Party that has virtually constituted itself a parliamentary oligarchy is responsible for it. A Labor Party that has proved its apostacy to the world-wide Labor movement, that has dared to flout the cause of Australian unionists by coquetting. Avith the master-class, its figurehead and its flunkeys, is demonstrating to the workers of Australia that only by and through their direct industrial action toAvard a revolutionary social change can tho workingclass achieve emancipation from the thraldom of capitalism and its martial bulwarks.