FEDERATION OF LABOUR

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10710, 14 September 1912, Page 5

FEDERATION OF LABOUR

ADDRESS BY ORGANISER. 'Ttv 'l'fipnr.i 'ih —Ptpm AMnciation.) CHRIST CHURCH, Last Night. Mr Semple, organiser for the New Zealand Federation of. Labour, addressed about fifty men at the Addington railway workshops during tho lunch hour this afternoon; He dealt at some length with t)w> genesis of I the Waihi strike, and with new Unions under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act formed at Waihi and'.at, Kaitangata. He said there were attempts to "bust up" the industrial democracy by the power of law. It vras said that tho Federation was against- the Court, hut there were loyal members of the Federation who wc-re supporters of the Court. But it was also true that at Wailuno an attempt was being made to remove the term "a scab" by the substitution of "arbitrationists." Those men wero "scabs." and "scabs" of the worst type, since they were trying to smash the industrial democracy. Referring to the support received for the men at Waihi, on strike at Waihi, and those locked out at Reef ton, he said that the response was wonderful, and surprised the whole country. Already £l.").000 was subscribed to help the men, and that +ho middle of winter. The Federation was going on with the contest. Coal miners who understood the position were ,supj)orting tho Federation, and knew what it was to go before the Arbitration 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. Concluding, ho said that 'the Federation had surprised the country, and if I the police wero used too much,' it j would'surprise tho workmen .and the j country as a. whole still more. "Wo are not going down without a fight, i and if we do soj we will leave a ma>k j on the iudiutrial history of the county."