LABOUR AND THE FUTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 167, 15 July 1911, Page 8

LABOUR AND THE FUTURE.

;<By the HON. J. T. PAUL, M.L.C.).

In this series of articles the writer outlines some of the immediate industrial difficulties confronting us; examines some of the tendencies, and exposes some of the fallacies of. the times;, and through all measures the future place of the Arbitration Act as a means of adjusting industrial differences between Labour and Capital. To do this it has been necessary to review some advantages arbitration has brought " the workers. That will enable us' to decide whether the condemnation indulged in by the miners—the leaders of the revolt against, arbitration—is wholly justified in the light of the solid advantages gained by them from the eystem. Incidentally some fallacies that ought to be pensioned are exposed, and the series will conclude with some remarks on the hopes and difficulties of the morrow. V.—SOME FALLACIES THAT OUGHT TO BE PENSIONED. I will now give you a short outline of the great changes which are in contemplation and which shall come suddenly upon society like a thief in the night. . . . It is intended that national arrangements shall be formed to include all the working classes in the great organisation, and that department shall become acquainted with what is going on in other departments; that all individual competition is to cease; that all manufactures are..to be carried on by national companies; All trades shall form associations for carrying on the business; all individuals of the specific class shall become n'embers. —Robert Owen, 88 years ago.

The socialistic agitation has carried the idea of expropriation to the remotest centres of industry, and the ■working men there, having mastered this theory, might begin expropriation of the Bourgeoise (the middle clais of citizens, especially traders) by taking possession of the warehouses and mtans of production without the sanction'of the dictators of the Labour movement.

Nothing is so contagious and suggestive as rebellion. The farm workers and t.he poor farmers might imitate the workers of the cities and seize tie possessions of great landowners. . . '',

The battle would become still more iitens;e as soon as the working peopfc tried to gain possession of the means o\ production. In this way the general strike is not the only introduction of the revolution, but is - the social revolution itself. It is only the name of the social revolution of the future.—Arnold Roller, 1906.

Take the leading strikes in their order, and you will find that, without a single exception, the organised workers have been defeated, and thousands upon thousands of them have lost their jobs, and many of them have become "scabs." Is there not something wrong with a unionism in which the workers are nearly always worsted?— Eugene V. Debs ("Industrial Union"), 1905.

It will be might by which in the last instance the question of right will be decided. . . . The workers begin to see that the last conflict for supremacy and complete and permanent control of the means of life and instruments of production and by distribution will not be starteS by the workers leaving the places where they create wealth, but by staying as an organised body and taking possession through such methods r« will be necessary to apply in order to settle for all time the ownership of the vast resources of wealth.—William E. Trautmann ("Industrial Unionism"), 1908. ~..':

Dozens of other remarkable extracts could be quoted from the modern literature of industrial unionism on sale in this country. I began with Owen's dream that the day was almost at hand when the workers would take control of industry and the changes were to "come like a thief in the night." So when we hear of the growth and prophecies for the future of the new unionism let us not forget that the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union, formed to promulgate Owen's idea, quickly attained a membership of over 500,000. And it faded away, comparatively speaking, in a single night: 88 yeaxs ago.

The taunt of present-day advocates - of industrial unionism is that "trades unionism, as we know_ it, is "organised scabbery." Much denunication is hurled at the Labour leaders who have built up the magnificent structure of trade unionism and are to-day strengthening it by the application of the federation principle. They. 'are called "scientific ecabs," "job-hunters," and other descriptive names which have more sound than sense and no truth. Debs even declares that trade unionism "is maintained in the interests of the capitalist class which exploits the workers who support it."

Wthat "is Industrial unionism? 'A? preached in our country it is of American origin. For the Americanisation of the New Zealand Socialist party has been consummated. Its members have been almost exclusively fed on. American pamphlets, and have not realised that they are educated to meet the American problem as there presented; They discuss our New Zealand position in the language of the American pamphleteers. It is regrettable that men should believe they can be educated in economics by the persual of a certain number of pamphlets, and that such perusal fits them intelligently to apply economic science to our problems. The action and propaganda suitable to meet American conditions is almost wholly nseless as an aid to imi>rovin<» our position. °

The Industrial Workers of the World (known as the 1.W.W.) i s the parent and guardian of industrial unionism It believes in the general strike—that the last great general strike (the last lockout some call it), will for ever shut the capitalists out of the factories and eive to the workers the machinery of t>roduetion. The I.W.W. is founded on the industrial syndicalism of the Continent ?. w about that latter. What has toe I.W.W. done for America? Mr. J Keir Hardie,.the British Laibour HP says that industrial unionism (LWWism) is the latest crudity in the American Socialist movement, which has never got beyond the faddist stage. And let us not forget that this same American movement is the maia source of Xew Zealand s Socialist literature to-day. Mr. Hardie has also said that "Never possibly has Socialism been so tortured out of all recognition as-it has in. America," and "industrial unionism will still further alienate trade unionists from the party."'

The plain fact of the matter is that Revolutionary Socialism failed to make real headway with the American ■working man. It antagonised him., Ko American Labour leader of note was attracted to its ranks. The revolutionary Socialists then turned their coats inside out and labelled them industrial unionism. By the change it was hoped to capture the American working man. The attempt is not confined to -America, for to-day in New Zealand the Socialist party'leaders are the leaders of industrial unionism. The Americanisation of. flofflo ife.Wf Zeftiftß'i l -'iflWlecie,-ih^s , ,,jbfen

Let us glance at the Continent, where industrial unionism is known as industrial syndicalism. "The Syndicalists call upon the trades unions to take. forcible possession, of the means of production,; to do with the present system of State government, and to establish the reign of free co-operative labour," says j Jane T. Stoddart ("The New Socialism?). Syndicalism i 3 the outward and visible admission that Socialists cannot give full payment on their promissory notes. Some schools of- Socialism have been prodigal of promise, and are most fortunate in not being called upon to fulfil their promises. "Experience has shown us," says Arturo Labriola, "that there are no worse reactionaries than Socialists, when once they have attained to power." -That is exactly tie language of the Australasian revolutionary Socialist applied to the Australasian Labour parties. The former apparently \ does not know that it i> the language of the Syndicalist. George Sdrel (is called the philosopher, of Revolutionary Syndicalism. .Werner Sombart ("Socialism and the Social Movement") calls him "the Marx of the new doctrine." Sorel is a remarkable man. He has ■written an illuminating'passage showing that good intentions are not an infallible guarantee of wise action. For instance: "During the terror, the men who shod most blood were those who bad the keenest desire that their fellows should enjoy the golden age of which they had dreamed, and who felt the strongest sympathy for human suffering. They were optimists,' idealists, and men of feeling 5 and they showed themselves the more inexorable because they thirsted more keenly #than others for universal happiness." Sorel cleaTly shows how Anarchist thought and action got into trade unions through Syndicalism:—: "Many Anarchists got; tired at length of reading the same grandiloquent imprecations which were constantly be-! ing launched against tibe capitalist re-! gime, and they began to seek a path which would lead them to really revolutionary acts." And so they became Syndicalists, entered the unions, took part in the strikes attended by violence, and were satisfied. Sorel says that "Revolutionary Syndicalism nourishes in the masses the disposition towards' strikes, and can flourish only in places where notable strikes, attended iby acts of violence, have taken place." '

In turn we find Continental industrial unionism, charged with danger to the Masses, taken to England by Tom Jfann Ind pushed through his publication, "The 'adustrial Syndicalist," sold in New Zealand by some branches of the Sociali't party. In all cases the Impossibiliat sqool of Socialism has failed to get the eai of the workers. They propose to call thir impossibilism by a new name, put °ni new mask, and capture the masses in the interests of the catastrophic sch<bl—the school which has always dreaaed that society can only be bettered b; an appeal to force. And Trautman nsists that "it will be might by whicnin the last instance the question of right yill be decided." That sentiment is endrsed largely by the industrial unioniss in New Zealand.

It difficult to get industrial itfonists to put their industrial ■unionisn into definite -words. In this "Industrial Syndicalist" (No. 4), Mr Tom Mann wites:—"l have asked Comrade Haywood'to write a few paragraphs dealing sjicifically with Industrial Unionism, aiu so le wrote as follows 'Industrial Uionism is the merging of bour forcevinto one gigantic organisation, vrher<a- the worfceWs will 'becdme citizens of tA industry in. which theyag-o employed, than subjects of : tW, State in wlih they reside." A well-' knotvn Socialist has described that as "bunttai of the most contemptible* type." HaWood is a lea-ding Amcrt can exponent 0 industrial unionism, and is extensively Voted by the official organs of industry unionism in New Zea : land. I understhd Mr Haywood's "bunkum" sounds 'beier than it reads. There is a proposal af to invite Mm to speak in New Zealand. I

Ao matter no A far we gcr Into the origins or aims industrial unionism it all amounts to iis—tie worker must choose between tht, strika (Trautmann describes several sorts of strike, which -will be used under industrial unionism) and somesystem of arbitration. If New Zealan gives up the Arbitration Act it admil to iie world that it is impossible to seiup a tribunal to decide which is the vrjjest amount a worker can be given ineschange for his labour under the preset system. It is no argument to -say thavfche present system is wrong. Whethe you resort.to strikes or arbitration, wthave to adjust matters under the presen system in the meantime. I contend thateven when the workers have "taken ovf the industries" there will necessarily te some tribunal to adjust the maip' difficulties which will arise. But -tritibut going to impossible suppositions, it lsciear to mc that arbitration can successiely be adjusted to me#t every new ch,nge in industrial society. It is not tbittaWe that an educated democracy as we have in New Zealand will be misled by such opinions as nuoted and outline! in this article. A democracy manhood suffrage is not likely to \verlook its tremendous political power an\accept the advice tendered fay such guiSes as Arnold Roller. It may be said tkt the Socialist party does not endorse aiy of the principles advocated in the iterature it sells. If that be so it is tins the matter was made clear. This wiolly misleading and dangerous literaturl is being sold to the novice as well as'the man who knows its true value. Litirature of that type should not be soldby | a party with sane ideas of the relats-e fitness of things and , the necessities if the New Zealand situation. The th'eoriia put forward are wholly impracticable an\ wholly dishonest, and can hurt none sc much as the working man who reads and believes some of them. If the fallacies of the. general strike, "seizing and 'holding the industry," one big union of all New Zealand workers, and the idea of a triumph of force over reason were pen«ioned, the way wouWybe clearer for immediate action in dealing with oppressive monopolies. The workers have their choice between the strike and lock-out or arbitration. The immediate -work is 'a closer federation of unions, and amalgamation where unions are small and overlapping. The Important question of the form of industrial organisation has just received very careful and very full consideration by the Sydney (New South Wales) Labour Council. After discussing the relative merits of arbitration and the strike, the council declared in favour of arbitration by 77 votes to 32, and after three nights' debate decided against industrial unionism by 86 votes to 14. Which i 3 tantamount to a declaration that the majority has profited from America's v.nfortunate experience of I/W.W.-ism.