The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1912. THE SYNDICALISTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 309, 26 June 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1912. THE SYNDICALISTS.

When the subject is reduced to absolute 'bedrock, syndicalism is simply class war. It recognises only one basis of procedure: instant concerted action as .distinct from politics and diplomacy. It recognises two classes only—the people who are exploited, and the people who exploit, mas>ter and servant, employee and employer. It is a weapon the Red Federation ol New Zealand are trying to forge, the weapon of the general strike that upsota the whole economy of a country and for which no political weapon is a match. The syndicalist recognises no political power, because direct action by massed bodies of strikers makes political action useless. If syndicalism is to succeed, all workers must believe that all employers are their enemies, and must be punished by methods that are ruinous to both sides. The leading syndicali*ts call on their supporters to undergo starvation in order that the employer may be hurt. The employer is not less a person to be fought because he makes concessions to demands. He is a person, or an entity, to be wiped out. The syndicalist is not able to become politically powerful, and he does not desire to be so. He knows that political actios is law and is slow. The basis of his belief is direct and destructive action. In j New Zealand, as elsewhere, therefore, Parliamentary Labor representatives are of no service to syndicalism, for they are bound to conform to the dictates of the most powerful party in Parliament. A general strike simply atrophies Parliamentary power, and makes fun of the law. The watchword of the syndicalist is "solidarity." He does not believe in individual attainments, individual ambition, or individual fighting. His method

is coercion of the enemy by the'action of a mass. The individual must sink his individuality in the machine, and the machine clicks out the contention that every unit of a mass is precisely like "very unit in every material respect and ambition. That is why syndicalism has failed, is failing badly, and will for ever fail. It has no alternative to offer for a destroyed social system, and it calls loudly that it is having a win when its victims are at the lowest poverty point. It calls on the man, woman and child with the empty stomach to go on win- ( ning— and the man, woman and child j will ultimately turn to rend the collectivism who is not himself a tiero, but who demands collectivism from his dupes—for there is no possible doubt that the mass in a general strike are the dupes of men with debased minds, and with no pure humanity. The general strike has no justification, as an ordinary strike often has. The idea that a wharf laborer at Moturoa should wage war against the "exploiter" because a carpenter's strike is in progress at Wellington can only be regarded as absolutely primitive. II the Red Federation of New Zealand controlled the workers, as of course it desires to do, it could suspend the activities of thousands of apparently satisfied and adequately paid workers, because of the grievance of one isolated unit. At prosent a strike is proceeding on the northern goldfields, and the strikers who remain in Waihi are being insufficiently maintained by distant workers who are still earning wages. If syndicalism prevailed and did its worst, there could be no "strike pay," as all hands would be striking. As the general .public would suffer enormously, and the "heroes" of the general strike would have to live, anarchy would soon prevail. The syndicalist would become depredatory, and the man from whom the depredation* were made would become self-protective. In short, anarchy would prevail and anarchy is revolution. The syndicalist, if he knows anything, knows these simple truths, and he also knows that the general mass of workers must become insano and lost to all sense of reason and decency in attempting to provoke civil war, the ultimate outcome of which must be the most disastrous to himself.