Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1909. SECESSION OF TRADE UNIONS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4419, 3 June 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1909. SECESSION OF TRADE UNIONS.

This above all—-to thine own self he true, ind it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

Some of the Trade Unions in Auckland have just taken a very important step which may yet have some local historical significance. At a meeting of the Trade and Labour Council on the 26th May, letters were received from the Gumwo kers’ Union, declaring their resolution to sever their connection with the Council ; and the Secretary of the Tramway Union announced with regret that his Union also had decided to secede. As the Secretary has hitherto been very influential, and now shows his regret at t' e threatened secession of his Union, it follows that he did his best to prevent it, but was unable to do so. The alleged grounds were the expense of management ;• but the delegate from the Engineers’ Union said he “ believed it was because there was too much socialism.” His statement was like a match to gunpowder, several members avowing that they were Socialists. This threatened secession is to be prevented if pos* sible; but the feelbg is so strong and the discord is so real in the Unions that it is unlikely the seceding Unions will accede to the request to reconsider the matter.

We think this movement is indica* tive of great changes in the policy of Trade Unions, and that it will militate much against the Socialistic influence that has been so rife in Unions for some time. These secessions may prove to be

“ The little rift within the lute That bye and bye may make the music

mute And, ever widening, slowly silence all >

and place trno Unionism on a sounder and better basis.

So it should. There was room for improvement. Employers do not object to Trade Unionisms, but they do object and rightly too, to a hybrid Socialistic Unionism which is not properly individualistic or Socialistic, but possesses the faults of both systems without their good points. Anyone who knows the history of the Trade Union movement could easily have predicted the dissatisfaction' that would follow such unequally yoked forces as Unionism and Socialism. From 1845 to 1885 Trade Unionism was individualistic. It had had to fight and fight hard for legal recognition. Employers at first feared Collectiyist bargaining with labourers, and the latter, with consciousness of their grpat strength when combined, discouraged State interference. They, in fact, expected the S'ate merely to keep the ring and let both sides fight it out fairly and squarely to a finish In the early eighties there was a movement of a new spirit oyer the world of Labour, and the latter began to flirt with Socialism. A good many Trade Unionists, not realizing the true significance of Collectivist Socialism, which really means that all private landowning shall be abolished, and ,that the Social Democracy shall control ail labour, exchange, and distribution, thought tfigt by combining with Socialists they could easily pe.oijre a workers’ paradise. They thought they could better reach the ballot box, where the whole trick could be worked out in ope act.

Force begets force and jit was found that the alliance with Socialism led Dew opposing combinations. The individualist Trade Unionists also aroused themselves. They saw that the aima of Socialists and their own were not identical .; and from 189.5 onwards, slowly but surely, the ipfluence of manx has waned and leaders of Labour have seen more and more clearly that Collectivist Socialism is not th,e true line of deliverance. The belief i 3 growing and it is seen in the threatened eecessjon of certain Unions in 4-Uckland, that ■ too much Socialism ” is not going to benefit Labour. The Labour leaders realise more fully that the strength of Trade Unionism lies in widening their not to draw into their ranks both skilled and unskilled labour, and by con. conducting the Union on strictly business and non-party political lines. With right and sound unionism employers and the public will gain advantages, just as the members of the Unions will. Fmployers will gain by Collectivist bargaii in and they will have a guarantee against strikes when they are in the dischaige of groat industrial contracts ; the public will gain by the fruits of peaceful industry, and the workers will gain by more continuous and better paid 1

xv.iik. Thus there will bo it general gain, and the hand of friendship will .airy 'li« horn of plenty throughout the con mun ty.