The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1917. AUSTRALIA'S DILEMMA

Taihape Daily Times, 7 January 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1917. AUSTRALIA'S DILEMMA

(With which is incorporated The Tai* hapo Post and W'aimarmo News).

Politics in the Australian Commonwealth are not altogether of the miiii and honey order at the present moment. Andrew Fisher sensed the difficulties that were in trail, and he moved out to a haven of comparative rest in the High Commissioncrship in London. Very little of Andy, as his erstwhile followers familiarly called him, is heard from his retreat of high salary and minimum of responsibility. ,ie can look with some degree oi equanimity on the turbulence in th<scene he left behind and he no doubt aas some feelings of sympathy for those who are trying to keep at the nead of affairs. When labour came into power Andrew and .his fellowmembers of the Labour Government took all the cream and sweets that labour had been long striving for, and those who stepped into his shoes when Andy "Tophatted" it to London have just the gall and bitterness of government for their delectation. Things went with gusto and eclat while there were such things as State Banks to institute and establish; and so long as millions of money came just by putting a little printing upon otherwise worthless paper the young Labour Government had a glorious time and everybody could shout hurrah at the progress it was making. Mr W. H. Hughes, with the pet appellation of Billy, shared in the good time that was, and received the surfeit of plaudits that rained down upon it from the great proletariat. Good times were in the declension, however, and the sweets were beginning to evaporate when war was declared. With the first wave of patriotism, arid while many thought this war was going to be a repetition of the South African picnic, the position of the Government was still bearable, but Andrew Fisher had seen and noted the gathering storm clouds, and he knew the multitudinous upheavals that must follow. With good weather and fair wind no craft is more enjoyable or safer to sail in than the recently-launched ship of labour, but Andy had not much faith in it for weathering a storm and he took his clearance and signed on elsewhere. He .bad earned the right to the control of the London office and he took it, leaving Hughes to navigate and negotiate the breakers ahead. The Labour Government undertook to furnish what it considered a fair quota of men towards winning the war, but it soon became evident that 'that greatest menace to civilisation and progress of modern times, the Independent Workers of the World, was going to give trouble. As their name may imply, the I.W.W. are too independent to work, and too independent to fight for the life and freedom of their women and children. Selling paper for gold, confiscating, looting and living on the work of others is all in their cult. This barnacle on labour has but one plank in its platform and that is revolution. Rather than work to increase prosperity It prefers to live on the national principle; to confiscate everything and ' share it out till there is nothing left to seize and then let the country go to Hades or the German Kaiser, anywhere, the I.W.W. is too independent to care where. These independent i workers of the world will agitate to I bring about the condition in Australasia that their brother Bolsheviks '

have brought about in Russia, but they will neither fight for their homes nor work for their families if they can help it. They will loot houses and take the savings of those who do work, seize banks, confiscate all available money to their own use. They will take it to Germany or anywhere most convenient, but these independent workers of the worla are too independent to work and too independent to fight, and William H. Hughes has discovered this to his chagrin and his undoing Hughes has exhibitecTall the characteristics of a leader of a true democracy, he is in many respects an Abraham Lincoln, but, tactically, he falls lamentably short. When it became obvious that the Labour Government could not keep' its compact to furnish soldiers, he still continued to send supporters of the national honour to the front, and when he coulw get no more he decided to take a referendum of those who would not go voluntarily, and the Australian fiolsheviks carried the day against him. The men who would have voted conscription and worked for conscription .had been sent away; democratic principle had been rendered anaemic by draining it of its life-blood; under such circumstances to take a referendum was surely a tactical blunder of the greatest magnitude. AttorneyGeneral Hall is impeaching his chief for a wrong conduct of the referendum campaign. We have no sympathy with Mr Hall, the blunder was not in the methods adopted in campaigning but it was fatal to take a referendum at all. Mr. Hall, whatever his methods, would have met with n,o greater success. With" the ranks of patrician democracy depleted, while the I.W.W. were left to vote it was fatal to take a referendum. The position in Australia is now irksome to all honourable men, workers and otherwise, but it seems that Mr Hughes has reached the end of his legitimate tether After careful introspection he will probably decide that it would look too"~much like extreme exigency to now .introduce a measure for compulsory service. He will most likely decide upon a reshuffling of the Cabinet cards, ind let another Prime Minister repair the damage the taking of referenclums has caused. A risk of revolution or riot has now to be taken to maintain the national honour. W-hat would have been little more than an ordinary matter before a referendum was taken, is now a" somewhat dangerous step. It has to come; far better to risk what the independent workers of Australia can do rather than allow the whole body social and politic to beepme a dishonourable rabble. Russian' Independent Workers of the World have disclosed that they are led by men opposed to Government, that they are nothing more than common robbers, looters and confiscators, and that they will practice wholesale burnings, destructions, murders and civil wars rather than pursue an honourable course of work. Were it not for "This curse, this barnacle that has fastened itself on labour, democracy would have reigned supreme in Australasia long ago.