In Our Opinion

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 69, 5 July 1912, Page 1

In Our Opinion

SHOVE along Tin-: M.\r,!ii;.AN Worki.r now, as antidote to tha (fr-eat lying press. + HI! iuves twice who gives quickly." Don't delay urn.i n-. <.■■■ ;m,m' and lock-out fund. MEMO, fin- Wcllireton bakers: "I dv helreve in rYu/ioui's I'iiiiM', az fur away us Kussia iz." rjAKH United Labor I'aity '« behind ih« J- "Times." tso il is im>i-'iLHiu.-(l in iiii,' type on bigs'-' l ' 'I'fu djn'.g i>sp. *-_ WIII-A' mgaiii.-ed workers begin splitting bans alr.mu um.iJh.i- a rrtnko is "right"' or not it is time to do.*- up (illlJO. TfcTOW Ibe lion:- lor action strikes! »i 1* most, action is in. giving. 'Tim tlvo generosity of unions yoi-mis the greed c!' mine-owuvrs. rf"(0-N't.ii.VTULA'L'iO.\S again and ;i£;.ih \J to Tom iViAiiu, world's inbunoctiouist lor low and aciii'-vemotit of Die workingclass. His release, as his imprisonment, will make I'oi- further lighting lor emancipation. JJravo, old Tom! _— » RODDY" MoKENZIE, in n burK of candour, said ho could have bom in (lie present -Ministry if ho had desired., bufe felt it his duty to himself antl to tho country to decline. His duly to himself—p'rhaps! His duty to tho country— well ( i The lino.*mcmber of our slaff Who sot this little paragraph Just muttered with a brutal laugh, "Dickon!" A . "rfWAT Mills .should have enured the J- service of tlio Australian Labor Party in opposition to (lie Socialist Federation is no surprise to all revolutionist!; who know his nvufid. Bui why doerLocal Milwaukee continue to recognise him a-s a party member:-"—Editor "International Socialist .Keviev,," May number. Till! great fight of the future is apparently to be between The "useful people" and tlie "sensible people." Ah-. L-eigh Hnnt, that gallant swashbuckler of thp propertied class, has said so. "Attention," Haid Mr. Hunt, "should be given to the party of Socialism." If Mr. Hunt had been in Wellington Town Hall to hear Mr. Vow-Ids lecture for tho Labor Party he would not have spoken so rashly, for be would have learned lhat the Labor Party was noti tho terriljly Socialistic monster be imag-ined, but would put its last penny on the Single Tax. "Socialism held out "to some what see-mwl to be fine flittering things, but it'll © time had come for people to sink their political diffemi-w-s to fight it." Plea.*, Air. Hunt, when you get busy with the wadnly do not attack the Labor Party. We assure you it in not the nionfitra- you imagine, and you might be hurting some of your friends in the ministers' and lawyers' branch, no do bo careful. Why dons the new Reform League stand alnof from the Labor Party anyhow ? If properly approached, we feel jmre the powers of tho Labor Party could .rffrrange for it to join in wiith them, and jbftcome united as a. I?«>l'orm League. Then Mr. Hunt's object would be achieved.

Idolatry: bow mad! "To tho Editor, 'N.Z. Times.' Sir,—Now that United Labor has a page of the ' New Zealand Tillies' set aside for tho d;iily use of l'rofewot Mills to enable him to counsel and guide the whole community in tlieir journey through lite, pi ogress towards this loiifr-sought goal will become a grand rapid proeesnion. Professor Mills stands higheir in intellect, in inspiration, and in worldly knowledge than any man thin country has yet seen. Consequently his views on evr-ry social, political, and economic question transcend all we have hoard before. His is the truly master mind which clearly grasps every thread in the teonomio labyrinth and plainly points to all class-is of mankind

the path each section should travel.— I am, crs., F. T. Moore, Johusoimlle, June 22." 9 —— THE mine-owners' ultimatum at the recent conference: "'That it be .1 condition precedent to any negotiations for a settlement of any existing differences between the members of the Goldmine Owners' Association and any of their employees, that any organisation of workers with whom an agreemeut is proposed shall be a body registered under idio Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act." Who said the interests of Capital and Labor were not identical? HOW these "professional" Labor agitators bleed the workers! How they fleece U\c (oilers- of their hard-won earnings, and live- in easu and affluence 011 the munificent salaries they receive from their dupes! Here's an item for (he Wellington "Dominion" to chow over-.—"lt W 1k*«! Ptalod that I receive M per wfiefc," said Mr. H. Hunter, when spna.lt-

ing at a public meeting in the Alexandra Hall, Christchurch, recently. "I wish I did. I am secretary to tho Canterbury Driviris' Union, the Canterbury Coal and 'Timber Yard Employees' Union, and Christchurch Tramway Employees' Union, but the joiwt: salaries do not amount to ..£2OO per annum, and out of that 1 have to pay an assistant/ 1 « ORGANISED Labor in Great Untain is concentrating its effort h to secure an eight-hour day for all traeles The Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress i« directing tho movement, which is supported by a general federation of the unions- in the Labor Party, representing more than two million workers. The Parliamentary Labor Party is pushing on with the preparation of au Eight Hours' Bill, which will be introduced shortly. Efforts will bo made to cornel the Government to take up the

measure during tine piwrd ROFfion. I owerful unions connected with the transport, shipbuilding;, e-ugiiMiriiig, baking, and building trailos are prcatiiHK tho 'employers for an ei#at-howr day. The. leaders of the movement. conlidcntly pmsdict its success. The main object is to reduce- the high rate «f unempkyjivciit. IN a statement to the Ausl! alinn pxws, Prime Minirtor Ar.diew fisher declared that, after eorif-iucnitf.; tlm request for military assistance during the Brisbane strike, the Comnici.wealth Government concluded that the •rn-cninistan'Ces made it. unnecessary to w-mi troops. Aino, by sending them it w-euld bav<. done an i t"f)ivrabio injury to Austialm. m a co,nflicf Ixtween the 'roups and the* citizens at the tim» would have put ;.ti c.nd to the tkifenee systci. Fkinr ii- right £1 the .-unui;-e that ■ "c.V. a tapper,n ; p would Tiave sounded Vh>. d<«t.h-lui<>l! of tho d«t'ciice scheme- it would!--but isji''|j his idiilemcnt sicklici! o'er with the pale pusillanimity of '!»*■ o/lit e-lovin£ opportunist H Not a wo id about the monstrous crime that wnwild have been committed:

against the workers—the people who put him where he is—if the troops had been hurled against them; not a word about tho gross iujufitic© to his class if the troops had been employed as government agc-nAs to coerce, overawe and probably butcher tho workers- in the interests of tho alien tramway trust and the goldbugs. No, ontly . a flabby, sycophantic piece of opportunism that it would have killed a pet scheme of his Government's that all the best and truest thinker* in the ranks of the workers sincerely wish had never been born. "It would have put an ond to the defence system." Only this and nothing more. Significant defence of Defenoe, suggesting probabilities when Defence is firmly entrenched. Bah! , « PATIENTS should warn their firms against volunteering for the "Special Service Section" or "Overseas .Expeditionary Force" which is to be formed

under tho IMcmvo Act, 1009-10. They should be told that dir.cc'v they leave this country to fight ab.-o>ri (of couaye, jn the familiar caiit of the militarist and capitalistic pjw*s, to "fijrht for the ■Umpire"), they will in all probability l>e helping worn* linscrupu'ous financial interests to steal Land and destroy another's libfirty. Workers should, too, remind their sons that it is the penerals who give- orders from a safo distance- who reap tho substantia) rewards, while the survivor* of tho hell of 1 he trenches pet at first, (lattery and afterwards neglect. Tlicii attention should 1* drawn to the letWs which recently appeared in the local pi-res from an EnplisV society which aids old soldiers to emi.srrate, appralia/r for funds to carry on the society's work. The lotters meurtHwrwid that in England tlwire ware- nmty soldiers of unimpeachable character, who had fonirht and suffered for "their country,'' in great distress. ♦- SOMF, few misejiable misanthropes hold thai the day? of chivalry are past, nucli jr not the. case, is ofchpjy at-

tested by many inspiring illustrationr amid strangely vusryinp circumstances in modorn lite—and death. Yet, if th» world's women were all of the contemptible calibre of Mrs. Alexander Preston, a Baltimore (U.S.A.) society leader, tho last days of Chivalry would soon be with ÜB, and thero would be none so poor to do him 'reverence, till he finally yielded up the ghost in de-spair of soul,' and hit weary, broken spirit was laid to rest in a lonely grave, "unwept, unhonored, and unsung." She would have it so, thil Baltimore butterfly, who has given ii forth to Che world that she does not believe in the unwritten law of the sea, "Women and children first." "A man ii a more valuable member of a community and cf a nation than is a woman," sh« said rccenflv. "I believe in looking at tho thing in' a cold, impartial light. Why should a man like Major Butt have to die with the Titanic to save an unmL-

pnuit woman? President l'hark* M. Hays of the I'rand Trunk railroad, wae, by the law of the survive! of the fittest, the ablest man of the thousands who work for his road. Any one of those thousands e>i men was worth more than a woman. Colonel Astor was a man of power. I believe that every man on that boat who died did what, he thought best. They are heroes in every sense of the word. They regarded obedience to the unwritten law of the sea to he their duty. But the law is w'roni;." We emphatically distant from this society idter'fl opinion, and believe t'bnt an emigrant woman, boarinp the burdens and eerrowe of the human race, is of far more value to tho world than amy so-called captain of industry who battens upon the toil of others. It is not sivrprisiiijr to .learn that Mr*. Preston is an ardent anti-suf-fragist, and it in a filling compliment to the cause of woman's political equality that a person with no infinifedmn.l a mind as the Baltimore society leader is not with the suffrage movement.