WELFARE LEAGUE’S REPLY TO MR. H. W. BAXTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1921, Page 8

WELFARE LEAGUE’S REPLY TO MR. H. W. BAXTER.

(To the Editor.) Can your correspondent assure us that he was perfectly sober when he sat down and collected all the big words •from our article on “The New Unionism.” He advises us to replace our writer with a man who can keep sober. It is a good joke and the writer has laughed over it. Your correspondent thinks our language was too descriptive to apply to a party counting over HIOjOOO voters. Weill, as the article never referred to a “party” at all we wonder where Mr. Baxter has been. If a party was one of ten million voters why should it not be told the plain truth as much as if it was only a single individual. If Mr. Baxter has any doubt about the “New Unionism” taking on the character of anarchy he has only to read of the flooding of British coal mines to convince him. Even with the settlement of the mines dispute in the Old Country it will take a considerable time to repair the mischief that has been done, and thousands of workers must suffer by what has transpired. Your correspondent may say that such, extreme actions cannot arise here. Are we sure of that? Just a few weeks ago there was held an “All Australian Trades’ Union Congress” in Melbourne, at which the largest unions of Australia were represented, also, two of the largest in New Zealand. That congress decided on a policy that absolutely sets aside the whole constituted authority of the States, Commonwealth and Dominion and substitutes a plan for taking control of these countries by self appointed

“Councils of Action.” If that is not anarchisip will Mr. Baxter tell us what we may call it? When we find the responsible delegates of the largest Labor Unions deliberately planning a course of treasonous action against the State then we are not prepared to use any “beg pardon” terms, or milk and water phrases to describe such conspiracy. Our writing may not suit the academic taste of people who look upon affairs as if they were dealing with

questions of merely literary debate. Just as it was found necessary to denounce in strong terms the treachery and destructiveness of the Huns, the Welfare League claims that it is needful to denounce the treacherous and prospectively destructive plotting of the enemy within our gates that is masquerading as Unionism, but is in reality more truly described when named Bolshevism or Anarchism. We said in our article “there can be no peace with the lie of class despotism and the meanness of movement that brazenly says

“All for ourselves, nobody else counts.” That, Mr. Baxter, is the new and false Unionism we denounce. If it does not apply to anybody, what need is’there to take offence?