GET IT CLEAN IN YOUR MIND.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 April 1922, Page 11

GET IT CLEAN IN YOUR MIND.

WHAT THE ALLIANCE OF LABOR IS AFTER. SOMETHING BIGGER THAN A STRIKE. In reading the newspapers of the country we find the idea is Widespread that the Alliance of Labor is aiming at a general strike. Mr. J. Roberts is quoted as having said so. We cannot find when and where he did say so, and, further, we would not believe it if he did make such an utterance. This for two sufficient reasons. The first, is that General Roberts of the Red Army is far too astute, if the Alliance meant a general strike, to let it be known that such was the purpose of himself and his comrades who constitute the Alliance. The same gentleman would be more likely to say it is a blind in order to cover the Alliance movements in other directions. Our second reason is that the whole machinery of the Alliance is designed not for strike purposes but for a very much bigger and more dangerous object than a strike.

The plan and policy of the Alliance is most cunningly framed for the purpose of carrying on a continuous propaganda of peaceful penetration into all branches of the Dominion’s activities; in doctrinating all wage-earners with the communist idea of proletarian control; consolidating all industrial organisations on a class basis, and finally entering upon the taking over of all industries and services of the Dominion. Strikes have been common to trade unions for a long timq, but readers should get it clear in their rhinds that it is a revolution and not merely a strike that the Alliance of Labor is after. We do not want 1

it understood by what is here said that the Alliance will not uphold any strike. Both it, and its affiliated branches, will use the strike, weapon when they deem it advantageous, but that will be entirely subsidary to their main purpose, which is revolution. The Alliance is not at all disposed to plunge into a general strike like that of 1913, or even encourage sectional strikes where these are likely to result in losses and weakening on the Labor side, simply because that would delay the march towards its ultimate goal of “collective ownership and wage earners of all industries.”

We have been asked to say shortly what the Alliance of Labor is. The organisation is an alliance of industrial federations and unions of workers designed for the purpose of strengthening the position of all with the revolutionary objective of substituting “collective ownership of production and distribution and control of all industries by the workers who operate them” in place of the private and public ownership and control now existing. A little thought will convince any reasonable person that the revolution contemplaetd by the Alliance could only be effected by one or two means. It might be done by direct action in the way of a forced expropriation of the present owners, or it might be done by action in conjunction with a political party in power which was prepared to enact laws of confiscation. It is inconceviable that such a stupendous change, affecting as it would the whole structure of society with the Dominion, could be effected by either of the means mentioned without resulting in general physical violence, bloodshed, crime and civil warfare. It is indeed a greatly bigger thing than a strike the Alliance of Labor is after. The movement is of the same pattern as the Bolshevist movement ip Russia, although expressed in other terms as suits the occasion. It remains to be seen how long the loyal people of this Dominion will allow this menace to their moral and legal rights to carry on.

What is wanted in the part of the Government is action, firm and definite, and on the part of the people that they will have no dealings with any individual who upholds the “Alliance” creed of class warfare and revolution. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.)