THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1908. LABOUR AND LAW.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3037, 6 November 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1908. LABOUR AND LAW.

One of the most remarkable signs of the times is the change that, seems to be coming over the proverbially law-abiding characteristics of certain sections of the British people. In England during the past week or so two members of Parliament have openly counselled the unemployed agitators to resort to violent methods for the improvement of their condition. "If the people are not provided for under the law," declared Mr Keir Hardie in the House of Commons, "they cannot be expected to obey the law." "The Government," he added, "would have to be shocked out of its inaction," and the means of shocking it wnich he suggested was simple outrage. Mr'Grayson, another responsible representative of the people, has just declared himself to be "willing to do what the people wanted, whether it was according to the law or against the law." And he went on to openly counsel a policy

of cr'me for the purpose of "putting the fear of God into the Cabinet." This was supplemented by a leader outside Parliament advising the unemployed to "rob and plunder all round if they were unable to obtain bread for their straving families.'" The Sydney "Daily Telegraph" considers that "it is worth noting how these utterances synchronise with the revolt of certain sections of organised labour against the reign of Parliament in this country, where open defiance of the Industrial Act is both preached and practised. Even here in Sydney a number of unions, with the tacit approval of the Labour party in Parliament, have declared their intention of 'ignoring' that law, and from Broken Hill, which has 'thrown it back in the Government's face,' come repeated threats of violence, should any attempt be made to enforce it in a manner contrary to he Unionists 7 wishes." The cables in regard to the Rock Choppers' strike also show that the Unionists are not prepared to obey the law when the law is in conflict with their wishes. As the "Telegraph" remarks, the singular thing is that this spirit of revolt against the supremacy of law should develop just when the masses had got the business of' legislation into their own hands. The laws against which rebellion is preached by the section which calls itself ultra-democratic are made by the whole adult population, represented equally on the basis of one individual one vote. In England it is practically the same, with the exception that women of no class exercise the franchise. If laws made under these conditions are not to be obeyed, how must they be made to ensure popular respect? "History," said Mr Grayson one ot the lawless law-makers in England just now, "will be made during the next three months, as half a million people were ready to risk their lives to find work for the unemployed." But how will robbery with violence find work for anyone, except policemen and gaolers? After the unemployed had acted on the advice of the leader who counsels them to "rob and plunder all round," is it likely that people would be more likely to start reproductive works than they are now? The certain thing is that, instead of new industrial avenues being opened up by such means, many existing ones would be closed. If the people were groaning undsr the tyranny of laws enacted for their enslavement by some soulless despotism, while plundering their fellow-victims would even then provide no remedy, there might be an intelligible incentive to anarchy, if not an excuse for it. But in a country where there are no rulers except those that the people themselves deliberately appoint, the revolt against law can only be regarded as the result of a curious mental and moral throwback, which is beginning to take the form ot a psychological phenomenon.