POLITICS AND LABOUR.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14761, 3 September 1913, Page 2

POLITICS AND LABOUR.

6 EVOLUTION v. REVOLUTION. (Br Geoiige Fowlds.) 111. Further evidence, if further evidence be needed, of the revolutionary character animating the Congress Committeo and their supporters, was afforded by their repeated refusal to aljow any modification whatever of their strike clause, which declares that— "The United Federation of Labour will employ the strike weapon, local, general, or national, whenever the circumstances demand such action. In the event of a lock-out or authorised strike the full strength of th© United Federation of Labour shall be at the call of tho National Executive in support of the section affected." Compare with this the strike clause of the United Labour Party, which expressly provides— "That no union or federation of unions shall be required to contribute specially to, or join in, any strike without first securing by referendum the consent of a majority of its members." Every attempt to modify in this direction the committee's strike clause was bitterly opposed and heavily voted down: and it thus became only too clear that th c real object of the Congress Committee in .putting this undemocratic, despotic, and dangerous power into the hands of a small executive of a dozen men was TO FORGE A STRIKE "WEAPON that oould readily be used for tho purpose of industrial action on sheer revolutionary lines —for "direct action," in short, to uso a phrase that was often on the lijis of the extremists. If this wa3 not the real object of the committee and their supporters, tJiey could have readily granted the concessions required to secure effective unity —(1) the .proper safeguarding of the strike clause, by providing that, not a small executive of a dozen men, but the union members themselves should decide whether or no they should take part in a strike, and (2) the abandonment of the shibboleths of I.*W.*W.-ism. But, of course., if the committee were out, not for unity but for revolution, they could not possibly affcxrd thus to n-odify their strike clause, nor would they be disnesed to abandon their I.W.W. shibboleths. In spite of the significant withdrawal of the president and executive of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the committee consistently re fused to mako any concessions whatever on these points. Small wonder, then, that, the Congress over, the United Labour Party in conference assembled, declared emphaticaHv and with practical unanimity the -vital necessity for the continued existence of the party as a rallying ground for the great SANE NON-REVOLUTIONARY MAJORITY of the workers of New Zealand! Small wonder that in their manifesto, issued over tho signature of their president, the Hon. J. T. Paul, M.L.C, the Dominion Executive of tho United Labour Party contend that "Tho attitude of the Federation of Labour delegates amply proved that they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The experience 'of the past two years had taught them no lessons. They believe as firmly in the strike policy to-day as of yore, and appear to be only anxious to extend that policy to every field of industry." ""Wo declare," adds the Dominion Executive,- "that tho conferring of autocratic power by the new constitutions on tbo national executive is undemocratic and antagonistic to the best interests of the Labour ftiovoment. The filching of control from unions and Labour Councils must necessarily act detrimentally upon the interests of the workers, and must ultimately bring about disastrous results from which it will take many years to recover. "We declare emphatically against the power given to the new organisation to call unions out on 'strike. We say that no executive should have power to involve unions in a strike against their will. The unions must, in our opinion, be masters of their own business. The United Labour Party stands 6olidly for that priciplc." THE PROFESSOR ON 1.W.W.-ISM. Writing in the "Weekly Herald," Wellington, of April 10th, 1912, on the occasion of the Easter Conference' of tliat year which gave birth to the United Labour Party, Professor XV. T. Mills said: — "There has been an effort, not made by the New Zealanders themselves, to capture those la_e unions whose strategic position gave them very great power, and to uso that power through their point capacity to paralyse industry, to secure by compulsion advantages for themselves to the utter neglect of the workers less fortunately related to the whole life of the country. If you will call tho roll of the epokesmen among these people, you will discover that those who represent the plans and programmes utterly repudiated by the Labour movement in Australia, in Great Britain, and in the United States, aro themselves men recently come from these countries, and are earnestly striving to re-establish here schemes which havo utterly failed on j their own hands in those other countries. "The reason why these men have made such a determined assault on mo and upon my work here is solely be- j cause, notwithstanding their most earnest requests that I should do so, I felt on coming to this country, bound not to identify myself with their work but to instead identify myself with the life and the institutions of this country and to aid, so far as I might be able, in the furtherance of rational proposals under tho guidance of those holding the confidence of the country iv the direction of industrial and political progress." "THE WORST ENEMIES OF THE WORKING CLASS." "The programmes they advocate hero have been on trial elsewhere and havo J always collapsed, and must always collapse, on the hands of those who promoto them. Direct action is in every country in tho world the watchword of properly-destroying, -bomb-throwing anareliists. There is nothing to be gained by avoiding the issue. Syndicalism, direct action, anarchism, are the worst enemies of the working-class. They havo caused immeasurable harm wherever thoy havo gained power and influence amonn the workers. Thero is no uso trying to 1 unite 'barn builders' and 'barn burners' in the same company for building purposes." "THE DESTROYERS." "This is the reason why tho Unity Campaign has sought from the start to make its appeals to the rank and file of all the workers, not to mako bargains and compromises wjth destroyers, under any misleading illusion that destroyers who have exalted a passion for destruction into a superstitious conviction that the best things in human lifo can be built on the worst passions of the human heart can render any desirable service to the cause of Labour here or ! anywhere." These words were true then. They are just as true to-day. Would that we could say tho samo of Professor Mills himself. Unhappily, he has neglected his own warnings, he has himself been "captured" by those he so vigorously and so justly denounced. And so he passes from the United Labour Party to the United Federation of Labour, from the evolutionaries to tho revolutionaries, from the "barn bm'derß'* to the "barn burners." R.I.P.