Tom Mann and his Mission

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 87, 8 November 1912, Page 3

Tom Mann and his Mission

WORK TO END POVERTY.

In the July number of "The Syndicalist," Tom Mann writes:-—

Comrades and Friends, —

Having completed a period of imprisonment, I am very glad to be at liberty again. I do not feel any the worse for the experience, and after a

~ days' spell for a whiff of ozone, I all be as fit and as ready for action nd ever.

I desire to thank most heartily all those friends who have shown kindness since the time of my arrest. Some wrote to the prison, not realising that the regulations allow a prisoner only one letter a month, so that I was unable to get these till I was discharged. Those I am unable to reply to personally will, I hope, kindly accept my thanks and hearty appreciation in this general acknowledgment.

Now is the time for ns to enter upon the campaign for the direct control by the workers themselves of the industries they are engaged in. Simple as this statement may appear, it is really the most far-reaching of any proposal ever seriously entertained by workmen. It carries with it the ending of poverty. It will ensure every child, woman and man being continuously provided with the requisites of ft comfortable existence. It will empty the prisons, tho workhouses, and lunatic asylums; for these places, particularly the two first-named, are filled by the poor in consequence of their poverty.

When the trade unionists fully realise the power and grandeur, of this glorious crusade they will enter into it with the necessary vigor and capacity.

The struggle for liberty has been a long one and a hard one, and whilst emormouß progress has been made, t!ie working-class are still industrially enslaved, and millions are at this hour existing under conditions much below those that obtain in the jails and pau-per-house».

All intelligent men know that this is so because industry is controlled exclusively in the interest* of the capitalist class, and not because tho workers cannot produce a sufficiency for all. There is only one cure, and that is, the workers must themselves regulate and control their labor and the results thereof, and this can be done and will be done by Direct Action as soon as the idea is properly grasped by a sufficient number of the workers.

Our immediate duty is to carry on a vigorous and extensive educational campaign. The trade unionists generally, and the trades councils particularly, will yet prove to be the real serviceable agencies by which we shall achieve our emancipation.

Meanwhile, we must arange a series of syndicalist conferences in the industrial centres, and one will be held in London as early as possible. This work will be done by the various groups of the Syndicalist Education League, and we ought to have suoh a group in every industrial district. Our comrade Guy Bowman will gladly give information as to how to get t» work to inquirers. Remember, we mean business ; we are Direct Aetionists; w« are not out to quarrel with any, but we are out to achieve something substantial for the workers.

We need a thousand speakers at onoe, who will, as members of the groups, carry on the campaign in all the unions. A oonnle of years' solid educational work will secure the volum* of opinion necessary for definite action.

This work is too great, too intricate, and altogether too sacred for a plutocratio parliament to touch. "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." That's our case. Instead of allowing the people to be) driven out of tihe country, a process which is now going oa, we will, and we can, drive poverty from the lane!.—TOM MANN.