DIRECT ACTION IN BRITAIN.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3657, 20 December 1920, Page 4

DIRECT ACTION IN BRITAIN.

Tbe Ohutu Box Mill strike is casually discussed above. Wo cannot understand why a few weeks before Christmas should be chosen for downing tools and submitting a demand which invited a conference and fo/restated what the result of the conference should be in all but mere detail. We are convinced that the strike was launched when it was likely to produce the maximum amount of deprivation amongst the women and children involved" and the minimum results in attaining jits objects. We do

not say that "men are being led by the nose" because thai- is a self.refu tation. It it not practically possible to lead "men" by the nose, but we do say that ' 'wild men are wrecking labour's chance of assuming that pow- ! er and doing that good in the world it is capable of." There is something .surprising in "men" being cajoled into i the belief that tIH road to peace, plenty, happy homes .to smiling mothers and robust children, lies through that greatest, that most devilish of all terrors a bloody revolution. 7 We know there arc wild men who actually believe that a repetition of the indescribably inhuman butcheries, murders and massacres which have been iraging for .years in the past in Russia, and will* certainly rage for years in the future -if less devilish counsels do not intervene, is the only way to a new and beneficicnt state of society. The lunacy of Direct Action has spread to New Zealand and, let thqre be no mistake, "Direct Action" are the camouflage words for "Bloo'dy Revolution." Nice word pictures are exhibited showing the fun there is in scrapping the, community's first ne. cessity " Law,'' but they keep in the background t ne bloody consequences, the terrible ultimate of such arch-law-lessness. Class rule; minority [rule is disastrous to the majority and if the majority in this Dominion do not rule we say advisedly it is their own fault Revolution is not a short cut to 'rule; it is a short road to disaster and oblivion. Direct Action Lunatics made an inscrutable blunder in agitating for a British Labour Mission to study the effects of revolution in Russia! Since that Mission's return the people of Britain have registered a "thunderous No', to extremists. The great Labour Members of the British Parliament were not "led by the nose"; they .were deceived, lied to; all the subtleties of a vile and corrupt propaganda wejrc practiced upon them but the Labour Mission to Russia has wiped that away, and direct action is now under the public ban. In the words of a British Labour M.P.: "No section of the community can for long hold up the majority of the community, and if Labour attempts to do so it will come to grief." No sensible, farseeing man that is experienced in the Labour movment will deny that truth. They certainly do not realise or they .care nothing for the dire#results which must follow their failure. It is now 'noted by British Labour Members of Parliament that those Direct Action .Lunatics who would precipitate bloody revolution are the same Direct Actionists who opposed the war, -who did their utmost to prevent Allied victory, and are still striving > to hinder the establishment of a just and lasting peace. There is a road by which Labour can reach the highest place in our halls of legislation; who is it that is turning labour from that road, and leading them into bye-ways to Diirecf Action? What have Russian workmen, gained by Direct Action? Is it not a' fact that they are actually and indectf, nothing more than labour slaves? If Labour really desKres fair apportion. ment of the fruits of labour there is but one means of gratifying such desires, that is the lawful way.