Twenty-Sixth Week!

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 87, 15 November 1912, Page 4

Twenty-Sixth Week!

Last Monday the strike and lockout had been going for 26 weeks. What an historical six mouths! What a never-to-be-forgotten fight, brimful of significant events and of climax upon climax! £25,000 in strike and lock-out pay! iJcyond all expectations. Again has tiie impossible been done. While men and women can fight as have fought the Waihi and Reefton Federationisfls; as have fought the membership at Huntly, Kiripaka, Auckland and Nightcaps against bosses' victimisation and intimidation; as have fought the splendid givers not directly involved in these particular troubles— while this sort of fighting is so marked and persistent nothing can defeat the revolutionary working-class ploughing to its own. In the future and finally success is sure ; aye, every failure but a steppingstone to the last great emancipatory victory. In tho meantime, the situation is grave enough, but the whole line of progress is one of action and reaction, with the last-named in a particular case never so far back as its immediate predecessor. Ebb and flow are in all things. The attack just now is terribly severe, and therefore must the effort to resist it be doubly strong and determined proportionately. Waihi's solidarity is worthy of worship. It will live in greater glory as the years pass; just as its scabbery will earn ever-growing detestation and disgrace. In connection with Waihi, it seems to have escaped editors' notice that the full text of an "ultimatum" issued by the police was wired throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion, and next its authorship emphatically repudiated by the police. No one has asked who wrote the ultifnatum. We to know. If the police didn't, the man who did has committed a serious offence against the much-deified. Law and Order, even according to Law and Order. Will the criminal be punished? Or can this sort of counterfeiting be done with impunity? We pause for a reply. As regards Huntly, beset as it is, we cherigh the hope that tho miners will stand solid, for short of unbreakable combination there is positively no hope. II the men keep together they have a big chance of beating the tricksters and traitors. Solidarity versus Scabbery is the question of the hour. Upon this issue much depends. Fight for cause and class, for Federation and One Big Union 1