ORGANISATION.
Maoriland Worker, Volume 10, Issue 425, 30 April 1919, Page 8
About this newspaper
ORGANISATION.
J. lleo writes: "Organisation is the order of the day. All the sects, crafts, and cults throughout the world are organising for their own benefit and protection. Our old ivionds. the capitalists, ire, of course, miles ahead, and they have* moved a long way lately towards one of their main objectives—centralisation. The Peaco Conference is a good illustration of the thoroughness of thenorganisation. Their delegates there dance to their tune, and carry out whatever policy they wish to enforce for tlie advancement of their interests. As showing the power they wield, it is only necessary to mention that the value of tlie business they control through their financial institutions comes to about ■£•70.000,000,000. The value of the world's' railways is JU,000,000,000, aild of tiVe world's shipping i! 400,000,000. Tb*se alone give us an idea of tlie power wielded by the comparative .few who control the greater part of this wealth. These few own the cables and the newspapers, and by these means, which should be instruments of enlightenment, they areaab e to poison the minds of millions everywhere, and by spreading false and misleading , "news,"' are able to set nations at war and thereby keep the people's in subjection. "Now, what is to be done to teach the people how they are being fooled and exploited by the power of capitalism, which overshadow? and controls the world to-day? Well, just OT?PANTRA- TlON r . Of course, som e 'know-alls' say that unionism has gained nothing for them. Ail their improvements, they contend, are the result of better timos and prices. One would think from th«ir arguments that unionism , had been tritfd, but, like political action by the workers, unionism never has been fried owing to the. lack of education and organisation among the very people whose conditions they are intended to alleviate. The position of. Maoriland is proportionately the same as in other cotinfries, and here, of about 300,000 mate workers, only 80,000, at the most, afe members of unions, and these are distributed among over 300 different unions. No wonder class and. caste exist among , the toilers! Craft unionism may have had a justification as an original appeai to workers who wero too timid and too dense ■to respond to a larger idea, and the bait of increased wages may have been the only way to induce narrowvisioned workers to take their first steps in a union direction; but the time hag new arrived to plaa e another and tb e -real objective before them. "Mere w«g;-.3 are not the objective of •unionism. The real object- is a life uf peace and libert}-, and this is impo.r--s-iblii unless the workers own their jobs and enjoy the things which they create. Unionism i-3 a means of getting thp.-o things. Surely those who have been pott'eriug about with tiftpotbits of unions for the pa.«t 20 years should realise by now that rises in wajo=, and other such trifling , things, ate not the real aims o£ the union movement, but that the ownership of all the highly-developed industries is. They muit understand that their little unions are obsolete, and that to attain their real objective, a new form of organisation is- necessary—to- wit, a National Alliance of Labor, composed of national unioni; and national federations of union-i. the whole being , organised into depaitments, and controlled by an executive elected by the departments, which executive-, however, shall not ba empowered to trench upon the right of each J'eilei-arK.n ami national union to fuh autonomy in it> own particular industry. < onc-erted action reaching out to au iniernatiorial movement will bo the. policy adopted to give the workers possession of their means of life—that is, the industries which their labor and the labor of their forebears have built up. Once tho workers grasp the idea, and act on it a great achievement like this will be easy of attainment. "We. have arrived at the when the industries are OTvhed by a. very few. This makes our ta«£ easier. The 'crank' is needed to inspire tho toilers with a wide vision and big policies. Let us hope his breed will increase, and that his work for the One Big Organisation of Labor 1o establish the ownership of the means of life by the workers will swiftly bringing about the better day. ,, , *
