Speeches on Living Issues

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 87, 8 November 1912, Page 5

Speeches on Living Issues

RICHARDS ON HIS TOUR.

THORPE ON SCABBERY AND

SABOTAGE

BARKER ON AUCKLAND

MILITANCY

At the Sunday night meeting on October 27 the Miners' Hall was crowded, many being unable to gain admittance. Mr. H. Kennedy presided, and the speakers were Messrs. W. Richards, J. Thorpe and T. Barker tof Auckland).

Tho CHAIRMAN, in hi.; opening remarks, pointed out. that craft unionism, with its death honelits and other appendages, had outlived its usefulness and tho only hone of the workers lay in keeping abreast of industrial development and banding together in a sound industrial organisation— ; an organisation which did not limit its activities to seeing that the workers got decent burial, but expended all its energies in getting better living conditions for the workers, so that the burial process would he deferred as long as possible. Mr. W. RICHARDS referred to the pleasure it cave him to bo back ajrain in Waihi to see our chances of success in the fisht looking better than over. The meetings he had snoken at while away, in Wellington, Westport. Stockton, Granity. Palmerston North, and Huntlv. had demonstrated to'him that a tremendous awakening had taken plar- amou'/?!- the workes, and th" enthusiasm shown wns sufficient evidence that our fight in Waihi was _ already well won for the workers of New Zealand; and, further, that the action of

our fallow-workers in going to jail rather than bo bound over and rendered non-combatants in our struggle had kindled a fire of revolt that would never bo quenched until the exploiting class was put out of existence.

Particularly was ho impressed with the West. Coast miners! who wore ready to do anything to ensure our success in Waihi, because they realised that a victory in Waihi was a victory for nil the workers of New Zealand. On the West Coast a band of militants were carrying on an agitation on the job and distributing sound industrial literature with such good results that the workers there wore prepared to.carry on tho class struggle in the intelligent and effective way that spelt ruin to tho masters' interests.

The Manawatu flaxmill workers and the. Huntly miners were also possessed of the fighting spirit, and, indeed, he might say that the workers in every place ho had visited were just the opposite to what the' lying capitalist press depicted them. Mr. J. THORPE gave a report of a meeting he had addressed at tho Thames. He proceeded to trace the struggle of the workers from the peasants' revolt in England right on through the Black riaguo and up to the present day, showing that conditions were always determined by the control of tho workers' one commodity —namely, their labor-power. After the Black Plague, which killed off a very large proportion of the workers, the competition was transferred from the sellers to tho buyers of labor-power, and as a result the workers controlled society to a greater degree than they have done since, but as their numbers increased they gradually reverted back to the old order of things from the want of the necessary organisation to maintain the position they had gained.

Fellow-worker Thorpe laid .great stress on the need for Industrial Unionism to cope with modern conditions, and traced its growth, which was accompanied by a very marked change in tactics adopted by the workers. Indeed, it might truly be said that the Industrial Unionist knew no defeat, and that he could make any circumstance a stepping stone to victory. In the dockers' strike in Glasgow as far back as 1889, the men had returned, beaten, on account of scab labor having been procurable. This scab labor, like most scab labor, being of poor quality, the secretary of the defeated dockers, in a speech to the men on the eve of their returning to work, pointed out that the bosses had said they were well satisfied with tho free laborers, and he advised them to emulate the scabs in their manner of working. The men acted upon this advice, with such good results that they were granted a voluntary 10 per cent, increase in wages within a fortnight. This was tho first instance in recent years where we had record of sabotage being practised, and the weapon, intelligently used in the workers' hands, was sufficient to gain them victory under any circumstances.

The speaker concluded by showing how the American workers were continually suffering defeat under the craft union methods of the American Federation of Labor, and how, on the other hand, the 1.W.W., by its Industrial Union methods, had gained many victories, the most recent one being at Lawrence, Mass. Mr. T. BARKEJR was the concluding speaker, and he spoke so much to the satisfaction of the audience that they hope to hear him again. After congratulating the Waiheathens on the fight they were putting up, the speaker related several amusing incidents that had cropped up during his visit to Waihi, and also told some little stories re the strike in Auckland, which his hearers thoroughly enjoyed. Mr. Barker went on to say that though it might be reported that militant unionism had received a sot-back in Auckland recently, such was not really the case. A band of enthusiasts was busy laying down a foundation of Industrial Unionism in Auckland upon which should be built an edifice that would never crumble, and upon such a foundation the movement would quickly grow. The Auckland workers wore fast realisms the class struggle, and could not be flim-flammed by the lying reports they read in the papers. It might truly be said that, in the vindictive outcry the papers had taken up against the workers in this strike they had overreached themselves and their bias became apparent to the least initiated when they had to report, to-day that the strike was slowly breaking, while three weeks ago they had reported that it was ended. Tho strike was not ended, however, neither was it broken, and from what he had seen since he came to Waihi it would be ended only in a complete victory for the miners of Waihi.—THE REBEL'S SUBSTITUTE.