Wake Up!

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 32, 13 October 1911, Page 10

Wake Up!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1911.

Surely, the conciliatory cunning of the oonscriptionists is not going to lull into sleep the man and the movement which have do no deeds and won world-wide attention because anti-oou-seriptionist? — - As tho outcome of the agitational and actual deeds generated as counterblast to jingoistic and" undemocratic "Defence/ the military authorities and the powiars behind them have grown as sweet as doves and as foxy as falsehood, / Thj&,_polio,y of plac-ation has been" carried to perfection. Nary a protest but has been met with honeyed i not a difficulty-but has been spirited aw^yvWe are ogj_the---- ov& of an, election! - Let not the anti-militarists be deceived—let not the militarists against the present Defence Act be deluded! as soon_ as 'the opportunity fits, the do-?' sign and the desire, all the outcry will fee ignored, Ifc will be swept aside at the very hour h false security has disorganised and disabled the opposition, lb cannot bo oyer-emphasised that jf the Defepoe is to be repealed— if even, it is to bo amended only—it inustfc bo done per the elections. Left

undone between now and December and the chance will have passed. Once to every man and nation conies the moment to decide, In the strife 'twixt truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side,_ Some great -cause —God's new Messiah —offering each the oloom or blight, i Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep i-ipon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'tAvixt that darkness and that light. We are moved to these reflections by the fact that the loudly-heralded AntiMilitarist Conference, announced for Wellington this month, does not seem to have been promoted and pushed with the zeal and enthusiasm of its start: the performance has not equalled the promise. No conference can be successfully held unless definite particulars are given for a long time ahead, and arrangements made in distant places for representation and business. And for want of attention to .this definiteness it is to be feared the proposed conference —if it has not been abandoned —will not be the grandly representative and earnest gathering it might otherwise have been. Should, however,, an announcement be immediately forthcoming, we hope all concerned will rise to the occasion and show that they mean business. With all the seriousness of Avhich we are capable Aye wish to remind our readers that at the hour there are over 10,000 boys and youths in this Dominion Avhose non-registration for compulsory military training means that they will never get a vote in their own country or ever get Government employment. It is infamous —a fid unless the Act be altered nothing can save the citizenship ahd (as far as public employment goes) livelihood of these lads. We are amazed at the people's assumption that because prosecutions have ceased therefore the liability to prosecutions has also ceased. Nothing of the kind. The "crime" Avas committed by the act of non-registration, and any but a jellyfish or desperatelysinous Government Avould have operated its own law, even if metaphorically torn to pieces in the process. But if too cowardly or too weak or too "cute" to now operate its law, do not, for heaven's sake, let us be so stupid as to think the .cowardice or weakness or cuteness will last \A-hen, like tho Arabs of the poem, the force against the Government has silently faded aAvay. Institutions such as governments are ahvays i-evengef ul; and if retribution be not their lot at the hands of enraged peoples, the undone retribution becomes the de\'ilishly-imposed revongefillness of the people's foes. As for the Defence Act, avo repeat— despite the Prime Minister's denials as to exemptions and promotions—that compulsoiy service always has and always will permit exemptions and that the exempt will not be Avorkers nor their sons; avo repeat that in the nature of things Avorkers and their sons Avill be debarred from officcrships—if not by enactment then by cost and other economic disabilities; Aye repeat that conscience is not recognised by the Act, that on the authority of so keen a legal analyst as Mr, P. J. O'Regan every adult up to thirty years of age is liable for registration and training (Avith compulsory medical examination), that under the Act no criticism of "defence" is possible, and that the Act is as much offensive as defensive, as much for suppression of industrial disputes as for foreign service. We remind the workers of NeAV Zealand that the Empire's working-class does not want New Zealand's con-

sciiption for the Empire (the specious plea advanced by upholders of compulsory training). The pronouncement^

we recently printed gives the He direct to the plea.

We further remand the workers of NeAV Zealand that in Australia —where the Defence Act came from —it is being shown that our conscription is Avorse, really worse, than the despised Continental consoription, in that ours "collars" and chloroforms the young. It Is also being slioavii lioav grave a menace the Act is industrially.

In respect of the first matter, we quote this letter from the Melbourne "Socialist":—

Dear Sir, —Having read much about the conscription which, in the last two years, has been so treacherously forced upon all Australia, I am much astonisned that no one has yet adequately, analysed it and given the people the proper meaning of it. In my opinion, of all the nations of Europe, ."Russia included, it is the worst concocted, and most tyrannically conceived. Just let us see how this is so. In those countries a boy goes to school until he is 14 years af age. Then h** has four years to learn a trade, with three years more to tra\ r el in order to perfect himself in his trade. He is then, at 21 years of age, called up for drill. Noav, consider what is done here. The best time for learning is monopolised in useless gymnastics called drilling, and their whole attention as taken up with rifle and uniform, and the needful for making useful citizens is throAvn to the winds. Last night I saw about 100 youngsters being drilled, until past 9 p.m., near the Fitzroy Toavii Hall, when I could not help asking myself, What will these youngsters be good for when grown up to manhood?—R.H. In respect to the second matter, we quote these remarks by one of the ablest of the Queensland Labor leaders from the Queensland "Worker" : — In England to-day the guns of her soldiery are being used in the most coAvardly manner and Avith deadly effect, not to destroy a foreign foe seeking to capture the country, but to subduo our own flesh and blood bravely struggling for a little —oh! so little — of the plunder of which English capitalism ruthlessly robs our brothers and sisters across the seas. Money is poured like water to crown a king; disgracefully squandered upon horses and dogs better fed and housed than tens of thousands of unwanted and - unloved little children of the slums; but when the poor of England's hell-holes —her manufacturing tovrns — ask for bread, England's coronating rulers answer Avith baton and buckshot. FelloAV Australians, I - ask you as men, Avith all the earnestness I am capable of, to firmly demand an explicit guarantee fiom the Fisher eminent by Act of Parliament passed and recorded on the Statute Book of Australia —that under no circumstances AvhateA'er shall you ever be ordered to turn your guns upon your oavii mates, brothers and fathers, fighting for better, fairer, and holier industrial conditions. This, at least, you should do. This, at least, your Government should grant you. May the day never come, when any Australian shall stain his hands and his soul at the behest of ' 'Captains of Industry" with that crowning infamy of modern industrialism—Avarfare on his felloAV citizens, his own flesh and blood rightly struggling to be free. Let us resolve now, comrades, ere it is too late. —J. S. Collings. In regard to the "Bulletin's" regular criticisms (sic) of our contentions it all ends in the wild cry of "Jap! Jap! Jap!" Well, the only danger we see ; n the Jap is the ceding to him of our land by the "great and glorious" Enrpiah in ay hose name conscription Avas imposed on NeAV Zealand. So far as it is not fought out in the markets of the world, the battle for New Zealand will probably be fought, out among the poAvers of the Old World and in the Old World. * But the "Bulletin" does not see nor reali.se the tremendous importance of tho neAv tactic in Avarfare —i.e., the organising of the Avorking-class of the AA-orld to end Avar by refusing to participate in it, either by using in workers' hands bayonets for Avorkers' bellies (as it has been from the beginning) or by doing the work, of transport and fuel and food producing which are for Ava.r purposes. We plump for Avorkingclass organisation, knoAving that Avith this, invasion -will be, as it likely enough is, a snare and a "bogey." As to the argument that warlike rieoples alone preserA"C the race —the race's stamina, courage, etc. —it ' "Avon't AA-ash." All the Warlike peoples of the past—with glory and generals eclipsing modern—are to-day ■ non-existent. Modern "Defence" is for capitalism War will be waged so long as Avar is prepared for. When tlie workers are no longer satisfied to Avage Avars they Avill end Avars. Noav Zeaianders, Avake up!