ARBITRATION AND SCABBERY.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 43, 5 January 1912, Page 17

ARBITRATION AND SCABBERY.

S:, — J "vill have (will) your nortnis•i): .tii jtli'T try to enlighten SVIr. J. Junll'l, C'f TVaimate, on nub^t.

In my last letter I asked Mr. Smith "If a union bind* its members to continue working ior a certain period, though their follow workers in ait allied or perhaps tho same industry are engaged in a fight for decent conditions, is it not guilty of scabbing? If not, will Mr. Smith tell mc what scabbing is?" He did not see fit to reply. Does he agree with this definition of a scab: "A scab ie a member of tho workup class who helpe, in any way, to break a strike or to undermine an attempt made by fellow workers to better their conditions.-" If lie does not agree with the above definition I would advise him to read a small pamphlet entitled "The Scab," by Jack London. If he sends a penny stamp I will send him a copy. If lie doe? not agree with my definition, I ask him to carefully consider the history of any ten unsuccessful strikes that have been fought in this last 20 years, and I am certain that he will find that non-unionists could never have broken any of them without the aid of good trades unionists. Another proof that tho Arbitration Court is a scab-machine; When the transport workers' strike was on at Home, and they -asked for the moral support of the waterside workers' unions here, a prominent official of the W.W.F. said: "No action could be taken, as the lumpers were working undor an award of the court." If it were not for trespassing on your space, I could go on and sliob- how, in every industry which is v irking under Arbitration Court awa '<, the workers would either have to l> *k the award and go to jail or scab i case of trouble with the einployei:. ; Mr. .'-'>nit.h prides himself on his knowle ' ,c of Industrial Unionism, and (the i .ny of it!) he. goes on to propagate those principles by writing such letters as the one I have before mc. He says he is "conscious of the fact" that where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. It quite evident that he believes in that old "saw," arid, acting on it, writes such letters in order to-keep, our fellow workers in blissful ignorance of their power. Mr. Smith denies that those small sectional strikes were futile because of lack of knowledge of industrialism, i.e., Industrial Unionism and its methods. I leave your readers to judge for themselves. Mr. Smith sarcastically refers to the contents of my last letter as wonderful logic. I can only describe his letter as a verbose tangle of meaningless platitudes and covert insinuations. Mr. Smith stands by the principle of arbitration between employer and employee, between robber and robbed. It is about time that all unionists understood that might decides what is right, that those who control industry have tlie might, that the only reason the capitalists, who do nothing but own, control industry is that the workers are not conscious of th«ir power as a class. Perhaps before I conclude it would be well to «"*pt««i wfca* wmM b* ti» indnetmlMS**' **s&a4 «Z ttteafec * demand. We will take the farm laborers' demand—a weekly half-holiday. In place of crawling to the Court, the way to get it is to knock off at noon on' Saturday and do nothing save feed tho horses till Monday morning. Mr. Smith will no doubt object "Yes. and get sacked." What of ItP Say thore are 3000 farm laborers in Canterbury, and 1000 are in the union and agree to take the half-holiday (of course, the more the better), that means 1000 men sacked, and as farm work must go on. 1000 jobs waiting for men. It would only mean an interchange of jobs, and the continuing of such tactics would soon lend to the custom beromin" established. Some may object: "Even so. the boss can get evon by reducing our wages." Can he? L«t us see! I put in on average, given no broken weather, 44 hours per week behind the teams. If I work four hours less someoiie else has to do it, so if 10 men take a half-holiday an extra man is wanted; if 1000 men do so, 100 men are wanted and so on. Now, our wages are regulated hy the amount of competition there is" for jobs, bo wo see that by taking the half-holiday per week we force-Ihe bass to roise instead of lower the rate of wages. Of course, I "know that at present we are not well enough organised to adopt tho above method, but I maintain that it is the only offective method, and that if Mr. Smith and dozens of others who are agitating among the farm laborers would propagate the principles of One Dig Union and direct action methods instead of spreading the weak-kneed idea of crawling "to someone above to help us, wo would soon be in a position to take what we can never get unless we have Highbank, December 12.