IF THE KAISER WERE BOSS-!

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3149, 30 July 1917, Page 6

IF THE KAISER WERE BOSS-!

A STRAIGHT' TALK TO STRIKERS

(By Frederic William Wile, in the "Weekly Dispatch.") The "Weekly Dispatch" goes regularly into tens of thousands of Dritish work-ing-class homes. That is why I like to have the occasional hospitality of its columns for telling tho truth about Germany. I want to have a Sunday morning heart-to-heart talk to-day with tho men and women who live in thoso homes. I am going to talk to them exactly as if I were their brother. I want them to helievo that I am honest and sincere in what lam going to tell them. I intend to take them with me on a night of imagination—a flight from the uninvaded, secure Britain which shelters us to-day into a Britain defeated, humbled, and Kaiser-ruled. Ido not need to appeal to the British worker's patriotism-he has given (and she has given, too) ample evidence throughout the war that there's nothing wrong with that, except in spots. To-day I mean to appeal exclusively to the British worker's self-interest.

Wo aro living in troublous industrial times in these islands. You workpeople know that, and I know it, even though the Censor does not'want us to nil cur news and views in public. lam not going to discuss the merits or demerits of the controversy which has been seriously retarding tho Reduction <,£ tho munitions which our fellows afield and afloat have got to have if they are not to be wiped out. What Ido want to ask you is if your class is fully alive to what would happen if we by any chance should lose tho war.

I know you refuso to consider such a possibility. I known you look upon Allied victory as absolutely certain. So do I. But in war, like in everything else, it is often the nnexpected that happens. Ask any of your pals who box. Ask each and every one of them if he has not seen, a man who entered the ring "dead certain" of winning, only suddenly, unexpectedly, miraculously to be knocked out by a chance How from the other fellow. It is usually over-confidence that results in a strong man being knocked out. It is exactly the same with nations. Nations, like prize-fighters, are often caught off. their guard through too staunch a belief in their own strength and invincibility. That is when they go to the mat and take the count. A Grim Possibility. It is not absolutely impossible for Germany to„win the war. We con make it absolutely impossible by throwing every ounce of our strength and effort into the job, but only if we do so. Supposing we do not. Supposing that, owing to a fatal shortage of munitions for our armies and our ships, we lose a really decisive engagement on land or on sea, or both. Supposing submarines—the Germans say they have 325 in service at the present moment—do accomplish the fantastic thing the Hun hopes for—i.e., our starvation.. Supposing that wc are reduced by military, naval, and btomach necessities to sue for the best peaco we can get. from triumphant Germany. Where will British 'trade unionism be on that dread day? How about pre-war scales and rules and regulations in that tragic hour? I will tell you where they will be. They will be in. the soup—a dismal, slavish, humiliating, crushing soup brewed by the merciless conqueror for your subjugation and his aggrandisement. Have you forgotten the Germans ghoulish "Hymn of Hate?" This is how its concluding stanza reads: French and Russian, they matter not; A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot: We light tho battle with bronze and steel, And tho time that is coming peace will seal. You we will hate with a lasting hate; We will never forgo our hate: Hate by water and hate by land. Hate of the head and bate of the hand, Hata of t.he hammer and hiUo of tho Crown, .Tfato of f*venty millions, choking down, Wo love .as one, wo hate as one. We have ono foe, aad ono aloneEngland! ' Do you know what that lino about "hate of the hammer and hate of the Crown" means? It means that England is hated by the German working classes as well as by the House ofHokeuzillem. It means that not only tho Kaiser iind the Crown Prince but the working men and working women of Germany as well are inspired by a leroeious n-)tuiug passion to grind the working classes cf Britain into the dust. Do not think for a solitary moment that they will fail to do so if they get the chance. A German officer told 'an American friend of mine in 1914, as they wore standing on the station platform of Louvain, that devastated Belgium was a garden spot compared to what the German Army would do in Ergland! . ginee then Germany has deported and enslaved tens of thousands of Belgian working men and workinb women, to say nothing of the myriads previously massucred. When you. road the Hymn of Hate, do you imagine that the fate of workingclass Britain will be any more merciful under the German conqueror's It will be, in all probability, unspeakably worse. If Germany sets foot in these islands she will not take the trouble to deport British workers 'to Germany, as she has done with the workers of Liege and Lille. She will work them here :ji England for Gerniany.'s benefit. German spokesmen recently blu/rted out that they expect to extort an indemnity of 2W)O million storling from" a conquered Britain. They know quite well that there will not be that much actual cash m gold coin to cart away. But they say they won't need to find the cas.i. Lntish .factories and mvfls and foundries and shipyards and mines will roll be here, and also eight or ten million men and women to work them. They will produce that 2000 million pounds by the Weat of their brows. There mil not be any "dilution" nonsense, or eignt-tiour <lavs or piecework claptrap or no-mgUt-or-Runday-work talk then. ; The only "rules" under which you will work will be German rules. The privilege left to you will bo to do.what you are told. The only, "^tew aids' will be German sentries with loaded rifles and policemen with pistole and sabres at their belts, lliey *'"J* «• only "leaders" you will be allowed to recognise. They may permit yon to hold meSs If they do there will be armed guards on the platform alongside the Email, and when anything is said that s displeasing to your taskmasters a sword will be crashed down on th table and the meeting will be over. That is the Prussian way-even in peace time Do von fancy it will be any different when a German army of occupation is mcimned in Middlesex, Lancashire, nvdebank or Cheshire for the purpose ejecting that 2000 million starling? Believe me, I am not exaggerating; I „rh only anticipating. I am trying to make vou understand what your nl ght would 'be if wo come out second beat in the war We will not, we cannot come out econd best if we buckle down to he job of winning. Ton know without mj telling vou that every turn of a lathe in England means a nail m the German coffin/sooner or later. \oui ought to remember that every missed turn of a lathe is a. nail m England s coffin. It is a coffin in which you, every worker, mother's son and daughter of you, will be interred if you do not now, right now and always, get down to business and stay there. Victory is ;n your own hands. Po'is defeat. Which do you prefer?