SOLOMON OF THE "HERALD" PIFFLES.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 57, 12 April 1912, Page 4

SOLOMON OF THE "HERALD" PIFFLES.

Lo! the "Herald" leader writes, foolishness he now indites — "Immutable economic laws." Chorus now of loud 'He-haws!" Does he really understand, or merely think such words sound grand? The British miners have grown tired of their masters everlastingly screwing them down ajid paying semi-starva-tion wages for the hardest) most dangerous and, at the same time, most useful and necessary work of the nation, and are demanding a minimum wage. I will show later how easily this could l>c given., but the brainy owmrru a rod managers cry, "Impossible!" and refuse it because they know that a strike or lock-out means immense fortunes to them, and that the squeezing oub of smaller mineowneirs and closing of smaller mines, inevitablo in a struggle like this, all mean greater control of markets and prices by the Tich and powerful a little- later on. Let anyone who doubta this consider. The- output of coal in_ Groat Britain is 3 in round'numbers, 270,000,---000 tons. An advance of Is. per ton roe&ne £13,500,000; an advance of ss. meana £67,500,000. A writer in tho

"Morning Trader," before the strike, commenced, aaid: ''Coal has advanced 4s. per ton since September." in other words, tire advance taken by the owners and dealers before tlio strike began, and which would pay the minimum kir 25 years, has been already received by the owners aud dealers, but not a penny piece of this has gone t' , tbe miner?. "British trade," says Solomon, "could not stand the pressure of the minimum wage.. If the minimum meant ss. a week advance, it would cost £9,000,000 a year." Yet the coal owners and dealers put more than that cost on in the three mouths before the strike, and trade seems to stand it pretty well. In the year 1900 the coal proprietors of Britain advanced the price of coal over eighty millions— double the whole of tbe wages received by the colliers in that yeni—and yet trade was remarkably good. If Solomon would try to get to know a few facts about what he writes, he would cease from "piffling" about that he understands not. I wonder if Solomon understands the meaning of "immutable economic laws?" But I am glad he understands that if we lift up the wages of any section, it will help to pull up the rest. Let us remember this, that every time we get better conditions and wages, as even a "Herald" leader writer can we, it ''is certain sooner or later to embrace nearly all trades and occupations." Hurrah! for the Federation of Labor. Hurrah! for the. Socialist movement. This is what they are out for all the time. I want to call special attention to the following: 'Jf it were (xissililo. )>v any form of legal enactment, 1o assure to all wage-earners, who form the majority in all civilised and industrial communities, such a reward for tln-ir labor as would not only enable tin , in to maintain themselves and their families in a high degree of comfort, but to provide for sickness, the precarioiisnesK off employment aaid old age, there would be an end to the great problem of the age." I do hope the working-men who read "Tho "Worker" and those who read the "Herald" will carefully consider the above words, then note that Solomon says further: "But we know that such aiii idyllic condition of things is unattainable." Solomon and most of liis followers and supporters really believe that lor the workers to be comfortable, have regular employment and be all right in their old ago is impossible. They «ay it cannot be for the workers. They demand that all these things shall be for the shirkers. When, later on, Solomon writes: "We have every sympathy with the working-classes in their desire to improve their conditions," wo take the liberty of quoting Sir Peter Teazle to Charles Surface, and say, "Damn your sympathy." We go further and say we don't believe such a statement from the pen of a man who writes that such a condition of things is impossible. What liars these newspapers are! What a lying fabrication is the whole system of society built up by such teachers and preachers. Two thousand years of church teaching, proclaiming that a great Divine Creator is the Father of us all, and yet to pretend that this great AllFather has favorite children, and that lie deliberately and with foreknowledge created a world and a _ system which condemns the great majority to everlasting poverty and misery. 0 the mockery of it I Most curious of all that those who are to be everlastingly poor are those whose labor creates all tho good things of life, while the favorites who enjoy the good things are the idle and useless. A Creator who made bees as well as human beings couldn't have been so foolish, for the bees sting the idlers to death. Supposed intelligent human beings, under the teachings of the churches and newspapers, send the drones to sit in Parliament and on public, bodies to use the "form of legal enactment" to mako their rents, profits and interest sure. Without such "legal enactment" these immoral payments to the idlers would cease inside a month. Yet Solomon would have the workers, for whom ho professes his sympathy, believe that, while "legal enactment" can make the shirker secure of comfort and provision for old age, such a thing is impossible for the workers. If it bo true that there are not sufficient of the necessaries and comforts of life produced to go round, it is time the working-classes insist that those who fill the table of lifo with all its g:x>d things shall be first to sit down ab the feast they provide. If some one must wait and someone must go short, let it be the shirkers who must wait and have short commons. But it is not true I No, Sir Solonton, in spite of your supposed wisdom, in spito of your filling the columns of a great and influential newspaper, your statement that a state in which t«b© working-classes are treated decently is unattainable, is not true. Your statemenit only proves that_ your ignorance makes you profit to write with authority on something you neither know nor understand. You say this is impossible in Great Britain. Tho Fabian Society some years ago published a tract in which it was shown that the wealth production of Britain would provide for every man of 21 ati income of £170 a year.

At the present time the average income of the adult man in Britain is loss than £1 per week, while the average wealth production is over £3 per week. .Solomon would have us believe that, while those who make no wealth ran and do live in comfort and even luxury, it is 1W those who produce tho wealth even to haw decency. Ho Irots out. I lie old, old bogey: "'I he whole trade of Great liriiniii would be seriously and disastrously dislocated. Indeed, it is not too much to say that, /;ui and unsatisfactory as things are at, present, they woidd be rendered nilinitely worst." Really, Solomon! For whom would they be worse!" If the forty millions of the people who do all the work and make all the wealth hud three pounds per week to spend for each adult man, would they be "infinitely worse" than they are with a pound per adult man:-' "J'is true the whole trade of Britain would be seriously dislocated but not "disastrously." Note, O Solomon! Forty millions of human livings would have three times as much to spend on the necessaries and comforts of lilo as they have to-day, and in Droat Britain itself would be discovered such a market for British goods as has never been dreamed of by you poor, purblind philosophers of the press. It would be as if forty New Zealands were suddenly discovered, all clamant for the products of the British lands and workshops. Oh, yes! It would dislocate things, but not disastrously. O Solomon, Solomon! Get a week's holiday and do a bit of steady thinking. "Pis you and your fellows, Solomon, who are possessed of a "loudvoiced confidence," but no one will ever think you have "a plethora of nostrums." You have not. You have not a single idea as to how to better the conditions of the people. Your only way is to express a sympathy you do not feel, and use big words you don't seem to understand. We have read Aesop, Solomon, and though we see the mock lion's Heraldic skin, ive recognise the Voice, which is certainly not the lion's. This Solomon says: 'The wisest and best of mankind have been seeking for generations the philosopher's stono which should transform the social order, but their quest has been in vain. Tho most they have been able to do is to somewhat mitigate the bard lot of the vast army of toilers, and to improve, in some instances to a very great extent, the conditions of labor. But the consummation so devoutly to be wished is still as far off as ever." The wisest and best have long ago found out the way and preached it vigorously. It is "Fellowship and Love" instead of "Subjection and Hatrod," and but for these newspaper owls and their fellows who hoot "Impossible," "Unattainable," it would soon be accomplished. For instance, Solomon "Herald" writes that all that can be done is to mitigate "the hard lot of the vast army of toilers. The consummation is still as far off as ever." The latter is one of those statements which are untrue. Sympathy Solomon either does not know what is happening in tho world, or he «!oes not want to do anything more than "mitigate tbe hard lot of tbe vast army of toilers," this latter l>eing tbe consummation which bo so devoutly wishes. He is afraid that if the workers get their fair share of the wealth the shirkers may suffeT, and he obviously prefers the well-being of the small section of shirkers —it is too small to be considered an army in any sense—to the welfare of the vast army of toilers. In his philosophy, the shirkers a.re to be sure of an easy lot and a pood time, but the army of toilers a hard lot ami a bad time. Mitigation is tbe only thing attainable. When the "vast army of toilers" begin to think &nid re.m ember that, as Shelley wrote: "Ye ai-e many, they are few," a united working-class party conscious of .the wrongs and robbery of their class, will sweep aside the Solomonit&s as chaff before the gale

To tliink tli.it Solomon could quote part of dough's poem and miss its significance : "For while the tired waves vainly. ■breaking Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far hack through creeks and inlete making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main." He quotes that and, forgetting thai other line: "Say not tho struggle nought availeth," impudently talks of "unattainable." II would socm that his hope to keep Uμ kilo class in its position had made a dupo of him or that his fear makee. liim a Jiar. The whole world over the battle cry of the Socialists is, "The world for the workers," and tho good time of the workers is not "as far off as evtsr, ,, but is now well within our and it only needs the intelligent classconsciousness of the workers to become an accomplished fact. I should be sorry to seem harsh with" Solomon and his friends, but whoa one reads the following, the cloven hoof is so apparent: "There is, however, another and more far-reaching objeo* tion to the fixing of a minimum wage by statute. It would mean that the new autocracy, which seems to have displaced the old trade unionism, would demand tfiat simikiar parlia/mcntary action should be taken in connection with every other trade and occupation in the country. Only a moment's refleotion is necessary to realise the grave consequences of such action." The writer's heartfelt fear of tho Socialist movement and its ever-growing power, both industrially and politically, so plainly shown, and tho dastardly sneer about "autocracy" applied to what is, in spite of any failings, the nearest approach to democracy the hietory of the world oan show, tell at once how anxious the masters' hacks are to damn and discourage the new movement. What a "grave consequence" it would be if the wealth-producers were made comfortable, if the workers , ' children Mere properly and thoroughly educated! Why, leader writers might bo cheaper than navvies—which ought to be a "grave consequence" to Solomon and Co., but would be of great benefit to the world. But courage, my comrades. In spite of all this misrepresentation, In spite of "Heralds," "Times," "Stars," etc., oic, "Your comrades chase even now the thieves," and in the near future we shall '' possess the field." Germany shows us the way. They have 78 daily papers and 200 weeklies, which makes it unnecessary for the workers to buy the capitalist newspapers. The moral is, "Push 'The Worker I' " and when it is soundly established on a good, paying basic, Wβ must have a "Maoriland Daily' The poor "Herald" man says the change cannot be brought by revolutionary measures, "but by all classes working together in harmony." Nay, Sir Scribe. It cannot be done that' way. There is not and cannot be any harmony between the robbers and tlhe robbed, which is the real meaning of "classes." It can only be done by abolishing classes and class barriers, completely and forever, wheh is the mission of tho revolutionary movement. Harmony of the classes! The lion and the lamb having a picnic. The tiger and the kid dining together. The hawk and tho pigeon at a family party. No! If tho shirkers won't get off the backs of the workers, they must be kicked off. Two thousand years of pretence at brotherhood and then to bo told that comfort and decency ore "unattainable," that* ''the hard lot of the vast army of toilers" must remain a hard lot, is too imioh; and tie workers must rouse up iti a vast army, put on their thickest boots and kick out of the way such dolts, or if needs be, •imply walk over them. "We are many, they arc- few. , *