THE TYRANNY OF UNIONISM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1247, 2 October 1911, Page 5

THE TYRANNY OF UNIONISM.

DANGERS AHEAD. Sir,—One cannot read your article of comment respecting the action of the Commonwealth Government without a certain degree of pleasure. To think that legislation in a country like the hitherto free Australia has taken such a despotic turn reminds one only of Russia under the Romanoffs. To think also that trades .unionism has reached such an apex, inasmuch that a Government under the auspices of the great British Empire has the effrontery to declare to its subjects that it determines in all avenues under its jurisdiction "to givo its preference to unions and unionists." This is beyond tho limit and conception of the ordinary man-in the street, and this Government also declares that it is ready to stand or to fall by sudh a decision. If this declaration of the Commonwealth Government is not an exhibition of a pure and absolute despotism, Mr. Editor, then whore have we such an illustration of abused power anywhere portraj-cd in English history? The Magna Charta was demanded of John by the enraged ba-rons of the period. The Stuarts imagined that they had a right to absolute power and to become dictators to the populace. The British race, however, revolted. Cromwell marched his troops into Parliament Houso and removed both tho maco and the rulers. Toleration Acts were Extracted in the reign of William of Orange, but where in the annals of history do we find a Parliament boycotting, ostracising, coercing, and. menacing the liberty of its subjects? Ono would justly imagine that a Government should exist for both tho liberty and freedom of its people. It surely seems a monstrous thing that a portion of n free-born British community should be marked out by a Government constituting a part of an Imperial realm for the vengeance of boycott, ostracism, and a political party spirit. When a Govern-ment-exists in any nation, one of its primary and fundamental objects should consist in that of protecting the civil rights of its subjects. Why should a band of men called a Parliament in any civilised land become tho mouthpiece of a Trades Hall Council? Campbell, the poet, speaking in reference to the downfall of Poland, said that "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell." Freedom is shrieking to-day, her face has a deathly pallor upon it; in many places ahe is in convulsions, in spasms, and in pain. Iler voico proclaims the agony occasioned by tho events around her. She sees principle, equity, justice, and right trampled in the dust. Sho is grappled by tho throat and strangled by men who have only the slightest realisation of what liberty means. A hallucination has so spread a mantle over tho intellect and mind that the chains of slavery, of ostracism, and of boycottism aro supposed to represent tilio cords with which liberty is given an unlimited line, that 6he may soar liko an angel to tho prosperity of humanity. Men aro ostracised, stigmatised, nnd despised becauso their actions in the way of conscience do not correspond with those of tho generality of their fellows; and this action, too, is professedly authorised by a Government, and that, too, by a Government which exists in tho twentieth century!_ When unionism was a boy, forty years ago, it had a suave, modest, and persuasive disposition; it spoke in a plausible and in a halting manner; it used moral sua.siou. and was rejpcctful. 'As it grew to bo a man, it becam« more robust in

disposit'iop'; to" persuasion it" added the tones of. coercion; it assumed a bellicose position: Now that it has progressed in years and lias becomc what its confederacies consider mature, it has assumed ii°- as I )CC t of a tyrant; that ■rfhich was originally a lamb now speaks with tho voice of a dragon, and to-day its 'dragonic voico isi hoard upon the thresholds of Parliaments and almost foot of. tho throne. That which tho world has hitherto recognised as liberty is now almost everywhere at stake. Ono man, speaking recently in Ireland, said, "tliey would have what even at- tho risk of a civil wax.. These arc the sentiments, and tins is tho tone. Tho world has only recently seen an ■ exhibition of tho wrath displayed in Manchester, 111 London, anil in Liverpool. Order in those centres was only restored by Parliament and by tho agency of tho troops. London's food supplies were menaced, while the peace of the Empire was imperilled, but what a paradox it is in tho history of human government when an assembly composing * a Parliament has the power and . becomes tho mouth-pieco of a Trades Hall Council; and what a complex situation we sav would be exhibited if a Government such as that of the Commonwealth were obliged to call out tho troops against its own partisans, the strikers, and the populace which had placed it in powor. Iliis under existing circumstances, that Government might be obliged .any day to perform, otherwise, it would have to bow its majestic head to looting, to pillaging, to t.lie stoppage of food supplies, to bloodshed, and to slaughter. Rapine would then become a legitimate', occupation of the masses. Tho question under existing circumstances is, where is a Government when in tho toils of a confederacy going to draw tho lino? A Government gives away both its freedom and its right to rule, when it offers to its subjects the option of either starvation, or a violation of principle in order to live, and this is a point to which contingency is leading us. One man has as much right to be a non-unionist as the other man has to bo a unionist; an equal freedom should bo guaranteed to each, and a Government should see that 110 mail's principles, religious freedom, and conscientious scruples should be allowed to be trodden upon by ail adversary, otherwise that. Government ought not to be there. Tho Commonwealth Government agrees to stand or'to fall bv tho principles of- unionism. Let it fall, Mr. Editor. Let it fall like a glacier on the Alps; let its downward avalanche carry all tho debris attached to it to the vatJoy below. Tho principle of coercion is wrong; such an invasion upon freedom is an enemy to the public weal, to righteousness, and to liberty of action in every sphere of life, and a Government is making a great mistake, when it assumes the position of either a Napoleon, a 'Danton, a Camille, or a Robespierre. Now, Mr. Editor, in this enlightened era of progress, of invention, of activity, and of Sliced, we boast of our liberty, our political rights, and our freedom. I ask you, sir, in tho face of that whicli we daily see, of that which'we daily read, and of that which the world daily experiences, is liberty going to 'a martyr's grave? Is slw saying good-bye to the •planet? and is tho whole civilised world soon to bo filled with a sting, tho poison, and tho venom of both ooercion and of boycottism ? These are the questions, the positions, and the problems which the human race, like an analytical chemist, has now completely before it to analyse. Will boycottism so saturate liberty with' its poison, that freedom will die the death of a martyr? The martyr of tho twentieth century; let mo end with a-quotation from a book which we all profess to revere—tho Bible: "Say j-e not a confederacy to all them to whom thispeoplo shall say a confederacy. Neither fear ye their fear nor be afraid. And tliey shall look unto the earth and behold trouble and darkness and dimness of anguish, and they shall be driven to darkness." Lucifer is the author of coercion, and especially when it attacks tlio principles which lie at the foundations of conscience, of life, of liberty, justice and equality, and when Governments stand, as indications point out tliey will do, almost universally between the liberty of many of their subjects, their consciences,, and thoir God, it is then that the handwriting will again appear upon tho wall. Thero is a power ' which is to-day minutely weighing tho actions of men, and the judgment when it comes may prove more profound than that which is at present anticipated. Governments too. like Lucifor, may fall never to ris-3 again.—l am, etc.,