A New Zealander with Tom Mann

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 87, 15 November 1912, Page 7

A New Zealander with Tom Mann

Syndicalism and what it Isn't

and is

A CHAT AND AN IMPRESSION.

MESSAGE TO MAORILANDERS

TILLETT AS ROBIN HOOD

(By TOM BLOODWORTH.)

The other evening I went to see some children give an exhibition of amateur theatricals. The piece they played was "Bold Robin Hood," and there was a lovely little girl acting the part of the famous outlaw of Sherwood Forest, and with her were other girls equally lovely as Robin's merry men. Robin was depicted as a hero who robbed the rich in those days in order to feed the poor. He killed the king's venison, and disregarded the laws of the land, for which he was outlawed. But to-day he is quite a hero. School children act his part and respectable people applaud his acts when depicted on the stage. , But the men who act the part or Robin Hood to-day in real life, the men who would take from the rich, not their money, but their power—the men who would to-day have the poor fed, not by robbing the rich, but by persuading the poor not to allow the rich to rob them—these men are anathema to the very people who applauded the acts of Robin Hood. _ _ Ask one of them for his opinion of Tiflett. for instance, and you will get something very near the description of Robin Hood as given by one of the girls acting the part of informer m order to get the bold outlaw hung: "Ten feet tall; horns like a bull; roars like a lion; fiery red hair; breathes fire- outrht to bo shot at sight!" That's somehow how English respectability and snobocracy would-describe the gentle Tillett—-but how different is the real man. And that other nightmare of England—Tom Mann.—what of him? Well, he is worse than Tillett—oh! far worse. Why, he doesn't believe in God I Won't even pray; and he has been to prison. And yet I've seen him, spoken to him, eaten with him, and even slept in the same hotel; and lots of other people slept in that hotel, and not one of them was murdered in his bed that night, or even had- his purse stolen; didn't, even know that such an awful character was among them. And why? Well, just because Ton Mann is not an awful character at all. but just a human man. The only thing I could ! find different about him was that he was far more human than many of the so-called humans who are so ready to condemn him,and that he can most beautifully and forcefully express his love of humanity.

I met him in tho breakfast room of the Cobden Hotel, Birmingham. I had gone there for that purpose, having heard that he was to speak in Birmingham, and that he would stay at that hotel. I had also heard that he would not be there until the evening, but as soon as I saw him I know it was he, although I had never seen him before. "You are Tom Mann," I said. "I am; and you?" "I am Tom Bloodworth." "Ah! I have heard of you; you are from New Zealand. Come, let us have a talk." I replied that that was what I was there for, and accordingly we went to the breakfast table and ate and talked together. Yes: there wo sat and talked of men and women in the movement in Australia, New Zealand and England ; and a man sitting at the same table asked us could we tell him why religious people were not sincere, and, of course, we couldn't tell him, because we hadn't noticed that religious people were not sincere. lb all depends on the religion. Here was I talking to a man who had just come out of prison, where he had been put for preaching his religion. And he was now going about the country preaching it again. And to-morrow he was going'over to Sweden to preach the same religion there —who could say that such a man was not sincere ?

Well, there are not many comrades forgotten by Tom Mann. He asked mc about many, and also about the movement. He had kept well in touch with affairs in Australia, however, and as I talked to him he was writing an article for the "Daily Herald," showing up the state of the labor market in Australia as a warning for those who are migrating there. He was interested in what I had to tell of developments in New Zealand, of the strike against arbitration, of the growth of tho Federation, and of the preference shown in some quarters for industrial rather than political action. Especially pleased was he to hear that the workors were shaking off the fetters of arbitration, and also of the resistance shown to compulsory training. And when I told him the Federation had adopted the I.W.W. programme, he said they were doing better than he had thought.

We talked of the strikes of last year in which he took so prominent a part and of his recent prison experiences. Then of the books that have recently appeared for and against Syndicalism. He is satisfied with the progress the movement is making, only regretting that there are not more capable syndicalist propagandists in England. He said that wherever he had spoken the workers had shown marked appreciation of the message, realising that whilst in the programme of the Labor Party and the Political Socialist Party there is much confusion and indefiniteness, there is in syndicalism definite proposals for not only the bettering of the workers' conditions now, but also a direct method of overthrowing the capitalist system and establishing a just and scientific system without any of the political jugglery and compromise which seems to be inevitable with politics. He had' just been in Coventry, where he had been addressing largo gatherings of engineers, and where there had just been formed a branch of the Syndicalist League, and after speaking that night in Birmingham was crossing over to Sweden on a three weeks' lecturing tour, on the invitation of the Stonecutters' Union.

In the evening I attended the lecture given by Tom Mann in the Midland Institute. There was not a big; audience, buti it was a good one. The chair was taken by the Rev. Arnold Pinchard, a well-known Socialist parson of Birmingham. Would that there were more parsons of his stamp, and would that there were more Socialists with so thorough an understanding of Socialism as -'.-t parson displayed in his openi!" re-

marks. Strange, indeed, it was !. oe this parson, attired in bis cassock sitting beside the man who, I suppose, is the best-hated by the capitalist class

of any man in England, and stranger still it was to hear him express himself in tho way he did. I really intended taking a full report of Tom's speech for Worker readers. I got a new pocketbook on purpose; but it will be useful when I go to hear some politician talk, for it didn't get used that night. I couldn't tako notes when Tom Mann was sneaking. I was too busy listening. What a speech it was! And what a speaker! I do not wonder that the authorities locked him up when there was going to bo a dock strike.

The address was named: "Syndicalism: Its Aims and Methods." And first of all the speaker told the audience what syndicalism was not. It was necessary to do this, he said, because some people had seen fit to write books attacking what they colled syndicalism, but they had really not attacked syn-

dicalism at all. Then he told what syndicalism was- I —and it was there that I forgot my book and pencil, but one or two things I remember. Their object should be, he said, that those who were connected with the work of pny industry should become the deciding factors as to the conditions under which the work should be done. They must organise the workers in order that they (the workers) should organise the work. Syndicalism meant co-operative effort effectively applied to the control of their industrial destiny. He spoke of the incapacity of the working-class, telling how capitalism has so subdivided labor that they had reduced the workers to mere cogs in the wheels of industry. And this because the workers themselves had at present little or no voice in the conditions under which they worked. It was industry the workers wanted to control. The Trades Union Congress had asked that parliament should feed the children, should build better houses for the workers. Let the workors organise to control industry, and they could then do these things for themselves, and do them far better than any government would do it for them.

The lecture was listened to attentively, and punctuated by loud applause, and at the close there were questions asked, and answered. " The feelings of the.political Socialists were a bit hurt., but that was to bo expected. Some stalwarts gathered round when it was over, and decided to form a Birmingham branch of the Syndicalist League. We then went back to the hotel, and in the morning I said goodbye to Tom —he going to Sweden, I to Newport. His last words to mc were: "Give my kind regards to all comrades in New Zealand and Australia, and tell tliem we are going strong."