The Maoriland Worker FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1912. Waihi Strike "Off"

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 90, 6 December 1912, Page 4

The Maoriland Worker FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1912. Waihi Strike "Off"

The Waihi strike was officially declared "off" last Saturday. Our heart wept. < We would have had it otherwise, but we know the decision was not reached without long and anxious thought.

It is not easy to admit defeat, and none may question the experience, zeal, and concern of the executive.

For our part we should have wished a last daring, if desperate, stand, with the whole Federation brought actively ! into tlio fray. Even a routing under j those circumstances would to us have , boon a glorious victory. On the other i hand, the might have been sheer I lunacy. | Decisions in wage-war as in other war ofttimos seem like a matrimonial venture—largely a lottery; by their fruits to know them for wisdom or blunder. Yet) there is no hope for the Labor movement unless it c;\u succeed despite its blunders. Mistakes there have been and mistakes there will bti until emancipation. "We do not mean to be understood as inferring the calling "off" of the strike mistake, or blunder. AVc know that it was not declared off without much consideration, humiliation and pain. Those who called it "off" stood to lose most. And though at thn hour there be thousands who are wounded and aii;;ry, let it never be forgotten that time and truth are- with the workers' cnur-e and that no strike is" really lost. The Wai hi struggle will make it easier for every other union in its contests and combats with the foes. Patience, brother; courage, brother. "Our march is everlasting till Time's inarch be done." It is interesting to know \hnt d'uiivi, the last year or two the "failures" cutnumbered heavily the "successes' , of the General Confederaion of Labor cf France in its strikes —but still the organisation strengthens and slowly the working conditions of the m<~ynhc-rship j improve. ! 'Tis better to have fought and lost than never to have fought at all. To \ cease fighting is to surrender all. A great and grave error will bo made j if the defeat at Waihi is construed into j a demonstration of the failure of the strike policy, for there are as necessarily reverses Upon the industrial iield as on the political field —and no man can count the latter. The wise crusader knows that skirmishes and baggage actions, checks and delays, are but difficulties to be surmounted, and as inevitable as final Victory. Strikes and tho ballot-box are means to an end, not the end itself. Unlr-ss both be vied to bring Socialism, the evil conditions of our social system will be never removed, the ills be never cured. Socialism is the remedy. Industrial Unionism in the last analysis is the samo thing and the same remedy. Given Industrial Unionism as form and plan of organisation, and no strlne smashed or a failure. This is what the, workers must, be made to understand, for when they understand they will be invincible. In the. day of working-class unity and power, Nemesis will como to the mine-owners, and the Waihi Company bo smashed with as little compunction as it smashed. After all, the Waihi strike was a superb effort. Few upheavals are more dramatic. It was brimful of incident, of sensation. Notable features were the. importation of police, the wholesale Sailings, the day-olf demonstrations and subsequent victimisation, the treachery ' and the seablicry of Arbitration, and the glorious giving of £30,000 by farnest men and true. The fighters and

givers have earned fame and made redletter history. ".Remember Waihi!" Long live Waihi! "Breathe awhile, and then do it again."