Cooke Replies to Mills

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 88, 22 November 1912, Page 7

Cooke Replies to Mills

LABOR, CAPITALISM, OR SOCIALISM? (To ihe Editor, "N.Z. Times.") Sir, —In your issut* of November 5 the writer of your Labor Page retaliates on the New Zealand Socialist Party for the' rough criticism be got by tho (Socialists on his tour south. Under the heading of "Get Together," he states that he had a conversation with throe men who are still Socialists, but are no longer connected with the Socialist Party because the things they believed to be most essential to the welfare of New Zealand arc the things proposed and supported by the United Labor Party. Now, this is very amusing, and if the men ever existed outside the imagination of your writer, they are very badly grounded on Socialist philosophy to be prepared to take part iv the "get together game of hocus," for the purpose of doing such useful things as presenting illuminated addresses to governors, opposing strikes and organising scabbery. The Socialist Party's attitude towards policy of the kind the Labor Party has adopted annoys your writer, who tries to persuade workers to get busy playing the capitalist game of politics. It may satisfy him to know that the Socialist Party is not formed to take part in the filthy game of capitalist politics, with it's dirty bargains for votes. The Labor Party can have all thnt. There is the same.relative difference between the capitalist politics and the Socialist Party politics as there is between capitalism and Socialism. The policy ■nf the New Zealand Socialist Party is iconoclasm so long as we are in the minority. "When we arc in the majority we will establish Socialism.

Perhaps it will be a good reply to your writer's further invective to analyse our respective positions. Either capitalism is right or it is wrong. If capitalism is right, the Labor Party is right in assisting the employing-class to try to flog the strikers back to work at Waihi and Reefton and in taking part in politics of the corrupt capitalist school order. But if capitalism is wrong, the Labor Party.is wrong, and it should receive no support from those who are against capitalism. If capitalism causes poverty, suffering, misery, and bad conditions, and these things cause strikes, how can a strike cause something which exists without a strike? Whenever a strike is defeated, it is defeated because some outside workers go to work. These workers go to work because their conditions are bad and they have no other work to do. Therefore, before the strike they must have been suffering the same misery and want which, during the strike, the strikers suffer. This clearly demonstrates that without the strike privation, misery, want, and bad conditions exist, but are only kept more in the background. Capitalism is the cause, not the strike. Every strike is a protest against capitalism. Every agreement with the employers is an agreement with capitalism. Every award of the Arbitration Court is an award of capitalism. If the workers continue accepting capitalist conditions either by agreement or from court without a protest, will capitalism ever be abolished? If we continue allowing the employers to interpret agree-v tnents and awards with no protest, shall we ever break down capitalism? The strike is our only weapon; without the power or virility to strike organised labor is as impotent as a rifle with no bullets. If it abandons the right to strike it may as well abandon industrial organisation under capitaliam.

With regard to politics, which the Labor Party wishes to substitute for industrial militancy. At the beginning the Labor Party's representative has to be Bent to Parliament as soon as he can conciliate and compromise sufficient votes. He has a policy to abolish capitalist evils with capitalist laws. While the Labor Party is in the minority he has to assist to legislate for capitalism. He has to play the capitalist game, although he knows that while capitalism lasts the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. To retain his position gained by rote-compromising he must go on compromising all along the dirty political line until when his party has gained the majority, as in Australia, he begins to administer the affairs of State, and keeps the system of capitalism going as merrily as ever. The same rule applies here as in industrialism. Capitalism is right or it is wrong. If capitalism is right the Labor Parly i<? right. If it is wrong the Labor Party is wrong, and should not be supported by those who oppose capitalism. The Socialist Party's policy in politics i? to break down capitalism by its militancy, and while in the minority oppose its penrickms laws, whoever makes them. In parliamentary fights we won't do any dirty compromising for votes, and when we do gain a majority we intend to establish Socialism without fear.—l remain, yours for the social revolution, FRED. R. COOKE, Secretary N.Z.S.P. Christcnurch, November 7.