THE CLASS WAR AT HOME.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 36, 10 November 1911, Page 18

THE CLASS WAR AT HOME.

A lecture upon the lessons to be deri\ r ed from the recent strike in England was delivered in the Socialist Hall, Christchurch on Wednesday evening of last Aveek by E. A. Hartley. Mr. G. Shrubshall, Avho was in the chair, introduced the lecturer and spoke a feAV Avords relative to his mission in New Zealand.

Mr. Hartley said that to understand the recent upheaval it Avas necessary to go back some years. . It should be remembered that -10 years ago trades unionism was illegal, and that when the idea of sending men to Parliament and to public bodies began to take root in men's minds there Avas no idea of sending them simply as Avorkers' re-presentatiA-es. Working men had been so accustomed to divide themselves into Liberals and Conservatives that for a good while the thought of a party of Avorkers. independent of either of the old traditional parties Avas not entertained. It was" only after the Socialist- propaganda began to take effect, that the idea of representatives of the workers as a class took shape. The whole of the recent upheaval.was really due to the fact that the Socialist idea of ,a class struggle, when all the Avorkers as a class must be. united against the capitalist class, had taken root, and the lesson was that industrially and politically they must alAvays be united.

At the conclusion, the chairman read two telegrams, one from Wellington, stating that the AA**aterside. Avorkers of that city had joined the Federation of Labor, and thus practically buried Professor W. T. Mills' unity scheme; and another from Mr. R. Semple, organiser of the Federation of Labor, stating that the Auckland strikers had gained a complete victory.