Drawing-Room Philosophers

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 57, 12 April 1912, Page 8

Drawing-Room Philosophers

Thero has grown up in the Labor movement a gang of professional pliilosophors, professors and ink-spillere, who damn and blast to the furthermost point of the fiery furnace anything »"uid ei'or.vtliiiij; that savors of aggressive tactics on the part of tho working-class. JJy a process of elaborate theorising, they come to the cortclusion that this tactic or that taclto is bad business for the wage-slaves. Their opinions arc widely quoted by capitalist sheets and speakers, as well as by a certain type of union official, ill order to stay working-class progress except along certain "approved" (and usually useless) lines. Generally, speaking, it will bo found that action, on the job is howled at as being particularly foolish and foredoomed to failure. This type, never having borne the brunt of the class struggle-—or if it has, its sense of it has become blunted —has little or no realisation of what that struggle implies to those who toil. Because of this there is a strong t-ca-dency on the part of the working-class to distrust those who oiler advice which! is seized upon with avidity and lauded by Labor's opponents. If ono of these self-same philosophers only descended the fearful darkness of the mine, waded through the muck and slush, listened to the creak and groan of the timber as the weight came upon it, clambered narrow laddenvays, slimy with water, and with water dripping upon him, and eke 4 out a crust as a quartz-miner, he might begin to realise that these men are prepared to do anything, anywhere and anytime, to enhance their working conditions. If this same philosopher entered the coalpit with safety lamp in hand* showing as much light ac a medium-si'-wd glow-worm, into the coal face where the miners toil and sweat, and pushed a truck or hewod coal for a year or two, he would perhaps forego a little of hie philosophy and advocate "action on the job." la that terrible darkness, with the pressure of the roof upon the coal supports causing reports like a battery of machine guns, with grim death flitting within the light of liie glow-worm, day after day, he too might feel that those who indulge in tihis or that elaborate thesis have little, if any, knowledge of the working-class viewpoint. Lot him hie to the factory, where tihe mighty wheels of the modern machine run and roar, and work before the fiery blast furnaco or at rapidly-run machinery, wit-h almost every ounce of encfl-gy being expended in the mad race of commercialism, and again he might realise that drawing-room philosophers are not in possession of tlte working-class viewpoint. A grim and realistic thing to the wage-worker is this relentless war of the classes. "With the dead and wounded increasing -each year, the struggle continues. AYith ever-ineroasing demands upon his energy tiH fc« works at collapsing point; with a remuneration becoming less and less and the struggle to lire being of the keenest; with the army of the unemployed multiplying with appalling rapidity, can it he said that "respectable" Laborite or tie bourgeois philosopher can poesess the same outlook upon tactic or organisation? The idea is ridiculous, and because of it the working-clase will refuse to bo pulled tin's way cr that as it may please some middleelass philosopher to dictate. "When the story of the Labor movement is written by the ihis-toria-n of tho future, it will probably bo found that those who have been responsible for the triumph of the working-clas» will havo been the members of tihati class, and that professors and such* like havo had no part. Government from tho bottom upwards 13 what is needed, we arc informed, that justice may be done. A©» tion from tho bottom, action on tie job, is also essential to working-ciaae success. And that action on the joi will be taken even though jibe ani sneer and yell of eyndicalism rend the air. Whilst awaiting the maturity oi the theories of learned philosopher** professors, and ink-spillors, human agony is being endured by those whfl toil. To them the class struggle is not a theory fc be elaborated upon, but • stark and Stern reality whioh km te bo ended.

Friday, April 12, 1912