FEDERATION OF LABOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 101, 14 September 1912, Page 5

FEDERATION OF LABOR.

"SCABS" AND POLICE. SPEECH IN CHRISTCETURCH. P>y Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. •Mr. Semple. organiser for the New Zealand Federation of Labor, addressed about fifty men at the Addington Railway Workshops during the lunch hour this afternoon. He dealt at some length with the genesis of the Waihi strike. The new union? under the Conciliation and Arhit.ra.tion Act formed at Waihi and at Kaitangata, he said, were attempts to ''bust up" the industrial democracy by power of law. It was said that the Federation was against the members of the Court, hut there were loyal members of the Federation who were supporters of the Court. But it was also true that at Wa.ikino an attempt was being made to remove the term "scab" by the substitution of "arbitrationists." Those men were scahs, and scabs of the worst type, since they were trying to smash the industrial democracy. Referring to the support received for the men on strike at Waihi and those locked out at Reefton, he said that the response was wonderful and surprised the whole country. Already £15,000 had been subscribed to help the men, and that in the middle of winter. The Federation was going on with the contest. The coal miners who understood the position were supporting the Federation, and knew what it was to go before the Arbirtation Court to be met with the sneers of a class-biassed judge. At Waikino the "scabs" were protected by the bludgeons of the police. No one who resorted to such tactics was a man. (Applause). Concluding, he said that the Federation had surprised the country, and if the police are used too much it will surprise the workmen and the country as a whole still more. "We are," he "concluded, "not going down without a fight, and if wo do we shall leave a. mark on the industrial history of the country."