To the Protelariat
Maoriland Worker, Volume 6, Issue 222, 12 May 1915, Page 5
About this newspaper
To the Protelariat
Comrades! Fellow-workers! Friends! —You, the bottom dogs, listen I t appealed some time ago for assistance to try and put someone into the field to preach the divine- gospel of Socialism. The echemo has failed! What does it matter? Some day this Vag. will get a caravan and travel up and down this country. Some one ought to do this, and it will have to be a free lance. From north* south, east and west, the cry of the people can be heard. They know something is wrong; they don't know what ie wrong. I received,- in promises and in ready cash, £60. I have returned every penny. I shall .come again; I will not keep still. If no one else will do this I must. I don't care a tuppenny tart for the intellectuals. I car© nought for the bourgeoisie. None but slaves can free slaves. I am interested in the Proletariat. I will not be side-tracked by promises that if I keep quiet someone in Parliament will do this for mc. Here are a few extracts from some of the letters I received: Dunedin: "Let your man talk straight-out syndicalism, if he likes; anything but this cowardly attitude." Runanga: "Here, you yag.; here is a pound, but it's like your damned cheek to want to do something the XJ.F.L. ought to bo doing." One from Waikari: "Sir, sorry I have been so long, but I am sending you two pounds."—Signed, "One of those to whom God gave the Earth." A Railway Construction Worker: "Cant send you a pound all at once, on account of the price of corn and the number of chicks I have got, but count mc for eight pays at' a dollar a time." There are others; but why quote more ? If ever there was a time in the world's history for the propagandist to be out, it's now. The world seems to have gone mad. Everyone demanding blood. When I was a small boy jvc yelled, "The Russians shall not have Constantinople." Just the same as we are yelling now, "It's a long way to Tipperary." The editors of the Reformed papers oro jeering at us. "Yah!" says one sandy-whiskered troglodyte, "whore's your Socialists now?" Thou the Socialists of England say something: "Treason , , treason, treason I"' shouts this hero of many fights the other fellow fought. Now, if this war has demonstrated anything at all, it has clearly demonstrated the power of Henry Dubb. The Premier of England, Lloyd George, and all the highly-paid! parasites of the little Cold Country are- out begging Henry to bo good and to bog in and make guns and powder and shells) and things like that. lam no pro-German, and I don't want to see Kaiser Bill over on that little island off the Coast of France called England, bossing tho show. I know jf Bill can get there by the sword ho will remain there by tho sword, and I want to see tho sword abolished. So if I was in England now I should probably be sharpening our wood chopper ready to biff Bill if he came over. Same thing applies out here; if Bill or any of his two-bob-a-day soldiers come out here with malice aforethought and a gun, I am going to join my plutocratic pon-pushing friend the editor of tho daily "Press"; but in the meantime 1 am content to sacrifice every drop of blood in my neighbour's body to publi Bill out of Belgium. But what i would like my friends to observe is this—tliat tho winning or losing of this war rests entirely in tho hands of the workers. When that fact gets into tho phonographic plates of the thinking boxes of our easy-chaired gentry, they will begin to realise that thoy will have to moderate their language when yelping against tho British working man, or any other producer of tho world's wealth. The same time, I don't want to glorify Henry. Ho makes mc tired. Fill his nosebag, give him heaps of work, tell him he's going to got a blooming harp and a pair of wings in tho next world, and Henry becomes ns contented and lncile as a goat. Look at the present state of affairs in this beautiful isle of tho sea! Hundreds of the Dubb family arcgoing about hungry because they have overstocked all tho freezing sheds with mutton. And most of these people are afraid of Socialism because it means the great divide. However, wo must do something to shako the sleep out of Henry's eyes. What can wo do? TllE VAG.
