ROUGH ON JOHN BULL. Wellington Trades Council Repudiates Him.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 78, 28 December 1901, Page 8

ROUGH ON JOHN BULL. Wellington Trades Council Repudiates Him.

POOR old John Bull ' He has been doing his best for months past to run down that fleettooted Flying Dutchman m South Africa, and get him to make a stand-up fight of it, and finish the quarrel out of hand But the Dutchman acts on the principle expressed in the well-known distich He that fights and luns away Will live to fight anothei day. Meanwhile. John's powerful neighbours sit on the fence, and openly make rude remarks about him. and quite as openly and as freely egg on the skedaddling Dutchman to keep up the game of shoot and run ♦ • • It must have been trying to Bull's tempei. but he has made no sign He is wonderfully patient And then, you see. he has been cheered up and loyally assisted by his own family Besides, from his youth upwards he has been noted for his dogged staying power, and, as he gave fair warning when the Boer struck the first blow that it was going to be a fight to a finish this time, you may confidently put your last cent on it that he will be as good as his word. ♦ • • Still, it must depress his mind, and weigh upon his heart considerably, to learn that that powerful and influential organisation, the Wellington Trades and Labour Council, at its usual weekly meeting last week has practically withdrawn its sympathy and support from him It is a bolt from the blue, for which he is wholly unprepared. This important meeting was actually attended by twenty-two persons, and by a vote of twelve to ten John Bull's deathwarrant was pronounced m these convincing terms — "That this body of representative working men emphatically condemns and repudiates the action of the Government in undertaking to send further troops to South Africa to assist in waging against the Boers a hideous and unholy war of extermination, which we believe was begun, and is now carried on, entirely in the interests of capitalists " • • • After this, John may as well shut up shop, and retire from business The twelve patriots who carried the above resolution, and pompously call themselves, "this body of representative working men," have decreed it However, we hope he won't throw up the sponge just yet awhile There are signs m the air that the working men of Wellington are not a parcel of marionettes to dance to the stringpulling of these twelve apostles of the gospel of scoot and scuttle They remind us strongly of the equally famous three tailors of Tool ey -street, who were wont to staitle and convulse the civilised world every now and then with manifestoes starting- with the majestic deliverance, "We, the p ople of England," etc etc But there was this difference m favour of the Too-ley-street tailors that they at least were loyal to their country • • » You will observe the lines of national policy laid down for John Bull's guidance by the round dozen of wise-acres who call themselves "this body of representative working men " He is to turn the other cheek to the smiter. To stand up for his just rights against a corrupt and arrogant oligarchy, to whom he gave protection and a charter to govern themselves, and to refuse to allow them to subject his own children to all sorts of contumely and

contempt, is to "wage a hideous and unholy war of extermination ' The Boers chose their own time for war, and it was of their own seeking For years they were steadily drilling and aiming to the teeth Everyone who reads history at all, and has an open mind, knows their aim and object — and some of them have not scrupled to avow it — was to "drive the English into the sea.' and bring the whole of South Africa under the Boer flasi They seized their opportunity when they were quite ready, and they struck John Bull full in the face, with all their might, for. as usual, John was unprepared * » * But no Power or combination of Powers, has ever yet assaulted John Bull with impunity, or without finding out that he is a terror when he staits It is a stale old gag of the Boers that this war was begun in the interests of capitalists Pure tommyrot ' British supremacy in South Africa was at stake, and the Boers forced on the war because they had persuaded themselves the game was virtually m their hands The twelve Wellington patriots who carried 4 hat resolution of condemnation against their own country, and who thereby virtually fling mud ai the flag that shelters them, may plume themselves upon their pr«iformance * * » But we deny that they have any right whatever to call themselves in this matter representative of the working men of Wellington The working men of Wellington gave them no sanction or invitation to discuss the question of the war Their president has resigned in disgust, and one of the trade societies has promptly met and repudiated their resolution It will be a sorry day for Ne« Zealand and the Empire if ever such opinions begin to prevail * » » When the nation is involved in war, it is the duty of every leal-heart-ed Briton the wide-world over to stand by the flag, and show an unbioken front to the enemy "The Empire, right or wrong," is the motto when John Bull is busy fighting All the vapouring of the twelve anonymous individuals who call themselves the Wellington working men, will affect the issue just as much as the fly on a steam hamra r It is the silly utterances of fantastical people like them, who, by encoui aging the Boers to keep up a hopeless struggle, are assisting to make the war hideous It would be the maddest folly for England to make any end now short of the compete reduction of the Boers