Only Through Combination

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 91, 13 December 1912, Page 11

Only Through Combination

THE TYRANNY (?) OF TRADES

UNIONISM

In an interview in the "Christian Commonwealth," the Rev. A. J. Carlyie, Fellow of University College, Oxford, and Lecturer on Political Science and Economy, said: "People complain of trades unionism as though it interfered with or destroyed the individual workman's liberty of action. The real truth is the other way round. It is only through combination that the individual wage-earner can hope to secure his own freedom. We have to look forward to a greater extension of control on the part of society as a whole, with the object of limiting the power of individuals or corporations over the great masses of the wage-earners. Those who regard the growth of the Labor movement as a menace to individual freedom do not recognise the actual facts. They think the world is a .place where people can do very much as they like, if other people will only let them alone. That is not so, as anyone who takes the trouble to look the facts in the face is bound to recognise. The present industrial situation presents itself to us very clearly and sharply as involving a conflict between the interests of different classes, which is sometimes called the class war. The class war continues to exist, and we have not yet surmounted the clash of interests, which we. are hound to do, in the interests of the whole society.. It does not matter in the least whether we like it or, not, whether we disapprove of it.or not, we have to recognise that there is a very real divergence of interests in the structure of our society, as it is at present." r