THE LETTERS OF BILL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 89

THE LETTERS OF BILL.

1 BEING THE OUTLOOK OF A WOEK- ] ING "MAN. i II.— MOSTLY ABOUT REVOLUTION. My Deab Pal, — Revolution is many-sided. So are its disciples. Almost everybody instinctively winces when they think, hear, or speak of revolution. That's the reason one particular brand of Socialist insists on being known, as " Revolutionary " Socialist. To get-the full and awful effect- intended, • the word must be pronounced with A round roll and a solemn, if not fearsome, countenance. This particular brand of Socialist doesn't mean anything very dreadful except ia those few extreme cases where he takes himself seriously. In all other cases the advertisements and reports of his speeches should be placed in the amusement columns. Now let me tell you what I would consider a 'genuine revolution.' In New Zealand jiuring jsinter the most-discussed and talkecl-of subject is football.^ I have nothing approaching a grudge against football.' In my time I've given and taken the knocks which are part of the game. But I never was any good at taking exercise with my mouth. So, when the autumn of my days came, I took on another form of earercise. To day football occupies an amount of attention quite beyond its importance. A man who finds bis bent in concentrating all bis intellect on the-evolu-tions of a ball of air impelled by 30 men, and double as rr-any arms and feet, cannot stop to trouble about weighty subjects. Many thousand men in each of our populous centres bestow more intellectual force on football than on. all the other serious problems of life added t together. Now, you would see a mighty big* revolution if these folk concentrated their thinking apparatus on political and. economic questions. You simply can't grasp f he change" which would result. Just fancy men putting in Saturday afternoon discussing social or national politics! Then on Sunday refreshing their memories of Saturday's-doing 1 orconclusioße! Again, if .in the lunch hours oi work days football Mas blotted- out- and social questions keelhauled! I know this is a silly, idiotic proposition. Wise government and full • knowledge of social and political • science are the foundations on which we- progress and nations rise or decay. Whereas football is the greatest sport on earth! And look at the physique of the men who play — what a grand exercise it is ! Yes, and imagine the sort of body the* next generation's football barracker will- require if the sport' of barracking progresses as much in the next as in the last 50 years! How much exerciss and how much physique do the thousands of spectators develop by simply looking on and talking football. ' ""You will vote all these prepositions nonsensical, I know. To think that the serious business of life should assume first- place above a national pastime! Too absurd for words! Yet I believe lam quite sane. As proof I anticipate the general verdict in the language of the street- corner: "There ain't goin' to be no' revolution"— >— of that sort. Well, then, what about the other sort? You often hear about " the coining revolution." You listen to the man "on the stump " with the loud voice — perefcaneehis only asset — threatening that- something awful will happen the " exploiters " when the revolution does come. (And if you're timid you are fervently thenkfnl you are not an " exploiter.") He hints at the great overthrow., the final struggle, the heritage of the disinherited, the glorious strivings of a people longing to be free from the chains and slavery of civilisation. You listen for the rattle of the chains. Nary a rattle. Then you look for the marks of the slave-driver's whip. Nary a mark. Then you gaze again on the hero-saviour of the- stump. Look cloa© enough and. you will learn that the man who tickles the ears of the crowd most is sometimes the least courageous — sometimes the biggest coward of all : a proiessing^ 6avionr of the people afraid to tell t& tmth as he knows it. He talks revolution in the mixed sense, affirming that he doesn't mean one coloured red and in the same breath justifies every bloody deed in history. He is simply ex- , ploiting passion and! ignorance — sometimes for cash ; mostly just for cheap notoriety. He is of the clan that can neither win fame nor serve bis class by constructive ability or hard work. He fiirds he can fill a place in the public eye by preacfi- ! ing the Gospel of Mate. What he lacks in ballast or ability — sometime?, indeed, in conscience^ — he makes up in r.olbe. But yon mustn't take him too seriously, or at Ms own valuation. He's not really blood-thirsty. If the revolution arrived you'd likely find him in the hill? collecting botanical specimen:-. Fprhap? he honestly believe* he would be in the front row next the barricades. Some folks say you can make yourself believe anything if you think it often enough ami long -•"hough. Knn yoiir mind's -?ye over the men who have m-rtde- good in the people's serious struggles. Then turn your thoughts to tile hero of the stump ! What a* falHng-off is there. When he mean? red revolution it's for the other fellow. When he uses the word in any ether sense he is soiling under a false pretence. In th© matter of personal courage — moral or physical — crar Revolutionary is a e-uck-ing dove. So, again, I anticipate the verdict — "There ain't going' to be no revolution" of that .-ort. You might think I'm unduly severe on this brand of ttump orator. I axn describ-

s ing a type that I know. Great and ; glorious campaigns have been fought on > the stump by great and glorious leaders I of the people. But they didn't preach ! .the Gospel of Hate. They were not failures or misfits. I have wrought in the factory - with the rerolutioxiary windbag at odd. times wher he was compelled to ■work. I have found him juet a taik«r who never made good. He couldn't master .his trade. He couklnt control his deceit. ' He couldn't do the fair thing by his [ boss. He couldn't act the square thing ;to his workmates. I've been ."with him iin the strike — and he talked. I've been I with bim in an emergency — and he talked. I've seen him trying hard to be silent — and be talked. He is talking yet. Did you ever put in any time travelling over the rough road our class has travelled 1 ? We haven't arrived ; that's ' sure. We can't even see the gates of the | promised m working-man's paradise. When ! we get to the gates I'm hoping they'll 'be open, though. It'll save a heap of : >ronble. ( cjimbing over, and we may be k tired. • Does the road wind up hill all the way? Tee, lo the ■ very end. »■» ■ Will the day's journey take the whole long . d*y? \ From morn, to night, my friend. I OxAy the fool-thinker argues that the gates are farther away than ever. Look back. The Spartans used their workers perhaps worse' than any other bosses in history.. Males and females were each flogged once a day " by way of admonition for faults' to be committed." They were compelled to assume - the jnost abjectstooping postures, lest vby standing erect they should come to feel themselves men and women. They were driven to the , fields naked, if rags were scarce. .To -add to the uncertainty of their Jives periodic assassinations were made by the aristocratic youths of Sparta. Then ekip centuries, «some of which were j indifferent, but all baS. Take the late j part of the seventeenth century, when . the factory system was ushered in, and the inventive genius oi Watt and ArVwriglit should have gone towards easing toilers' burdens. Instead of which, children of five were toiling at hard tasks for 16 or 18 hours. If they ran away their masters flogged them. In isolated instances even grown men and women. were flogged. Picture innumerable sordid evDs of greed and bestialities, and skip another century. Just prior to the advent ,of the Factory Acts, say, 1830, the chit's dren of five' and upwards were, still ra ( the mills. The -mothers left the Bulls to be -confined and were back at work in three or more days. Kittle mites of five years or more cooid not keep awake at their tasks. ~They were often taken by the legs, dipped in water, and sent -back to their places dripping wet. Others .were whipped j some more were giv&n torture punishment to teach them to keep awake. The %mill 3% mill 3 reeked with immorality, and worse. Disease was rampant. It was as real a hell fox the toilers aa ever imagination pictured. | You mightn't be inclined to believe all this, bhtl'll stand pat by it. The conditions were much worse than I've told you. Industrial history is exciting reading because oi the jars it gives one's self-re-spect. A fellow's feelings are an index to his right-mhtdedness. . If you . don't feel disgusted and indignant when you .. read British industrial history — other ; countries are at least a trifle worse,— then you're out of plumb. j Going on the same thought joarney you \ can easily picture, if you've lived as long as I have, some mighty big changes. In \ my earlier days we knew our boss personalty. We were- either close friends or . nothing. If workman and employer > didn't respect each other they parted j company. Personal management has now 1 given way in the shop to management by proxy. Take my tip., too, the proxy [ isn't always a success. Sometimes he's a prig, sometimes worse. In any case, he seldom knows the practical part of the business. He tides to look as wise as | an owl, when lie goes through the shop. ! For practical purposes he's just about as | useful as the sedate bird, for without | his foreman he wouldn-'i Tcnow an eccenI trie from a ratchet. I Then the machine has come. It will j kill the craftsman unless he wakes op. I I know a lot of our "fellows dofc't care I anything about being master of their craft. They'd as soon jost be able to i piece an article together as to make the | whole thing. When I first became a j journeyman the man who couldn't tackle ■■ any whole job wasn't thought much of. | Now we have trouble to get whole jobs. I Things have been revolutionised right ! enough. | Let. me get back to the real revolution j business. Can any sane man justify ie- ■ volution — even as a term — when manhood suffrage prevails? It's no good being a 1 fool and Jetting everybody know it. i What clian.ie has an undisciplined, un | armed mob « gainst a disciplined 1 , armed mob. A man »vho was " all there ' ■ wouldn't send his dog on such an errand. Is there any sanity even in talking revolution 7 Look at the ecrt of spirit it engenders. This gcspel of hate is a devilish thing at best. Love is the mainspring of all noble action — love of country and love of feUowman. Nothing else count* in the summing up. It ought to always be — I pray thee, then. Write me as one who loves his fellow men. Even, old fellow, if things are not quite as good as might be, we must retogniee this greit fact : we. have got well past the britte stage of industrialism. 7s o master dajre lay forcible hand on a worker without feeling the penalty. The brute stage was very real, too. But vl'en the demagogue . talks revolution he ought to be persuaded by the sane that an appeal to force presupposes that force alone should rnle. In the great human family love aloue in at tens. My friend 1 , if yen «urcey the rice and progress ef the peojslie, you will see that we. have fea«? a contfmra} revoln-

tion minus the letter "r. M Of which, too. I fcrow thee is much more to come. Till another day, yours in paldom. Bill.