Untitled

Evening Star, Issue 14053, 7 May 1909, Page 6

The great demonstration that took place in Melbourne on the Eight Hours’ 26th of last month in Demonstration, celebration of the fiftythird anniversary of the establishment ■ of eight hours as a day’s work amongst the workers at trades in Victoria puts up a record. The procession was longer and the gathering at the Exhibition was greater than ever known before. The conspicuous fact about this pronounced success is that the tradesmen have brought about reforms by combination amongst themselves unaided by legislative enforcement. Here, by the 1 actories Act, 1901, eight hours is fixed as a legal day’s work, but it is ■ worth while recalling the fact that in 1848 the Otago Association, when they began to build the City of Dunedin, stipulated that eight hours should be regarded as a day’s work, and the understanding was faithfully carried out, although there could be no legislation on the subject, as certain Imperial laws stood in the way. The historical fact is evidence of the good intentions_ of our City’s pioneers. The success of the Melbourne demonstration should show worker that by combination they bring about any reasonable amelioration of their industrial conditions without bringing in legislative compulsion. It' is well to bear this in mind in connection with the proposals frequently made fop compulsory preference for unionists. In the Commonwealth there were in 1907-only 130,320 members of trades unions, but that does not represent the full strength of those organisations, because registration is not compulsory. In New South Wales there are. only 88,075 unionists out of a population’ of one and a-half millions ; in West Australia there are but 14,544 member's of unions out of 261,000 inhabitants. As a matter of course, in these parts all are workers, for the idle rich are a negligible quantity. No section of the community is more pronounced in the belief that majorities must rule than the working classes, consequently they should be the last to insist upon restricting the avenues of employment to those only who swear allegiance to trades union tenets. The fewer restrictions placed upon men seeking to earn an honest Jivhm m the manner most congenial to therm selves the better for individuals and the community.

Pandit Shyamaji Krishnavarma was called to the Bar bv An Indian the Inner Temple in 1884. Barrister. Like many of his race, he ■' _is exceptionally gifted intellectually. Neither language nor race checked the course of a brilliant university career at Oxford, of which ho is an • H * s on the moral side that men like Knshnavarma go astray. Benevolent philanthropic, helpful to the less wealthy members of his class, the political faith he unconsciously—at least, he did not appear to recognise that he was saying anything abnormal— avowed in his letter to the London ‘ Times ’ goes far beyond the theories of statecraft commonly associated with the name of Machiavelli. He does not openly advocate murder as a political weapon, but he expresses no sympathy tor victims of the bomb. He openly eulogises the fanatical wretches who have translated his teaching into practice, and he calmly declares that the cruel deaths of -Mrs and Miss Kennedy were “accidental and incidental,” the bomb being really intended for Mr Kingsford, an un popular Calcutta magistrate. There was excuse for the assassin, but no pity for the murdered innocents. “The murder only proves that the habitual associates of wrongdoers or robbers keep such company at their peril,” and as “ all Englishmen in India are regarded as robbers,” the conclusions to be drawn from thri hideously inhuman doctrine are obvious to the most ignorant. The assassin is assured a crown _of •■martyrdom, and his family and relatives become a charge on the Beformers, Mr Krishnavarma was also the founder of the notorious college at Hmhgate>; London, known as India House. °of this institution it is sufficient now to sav that among the pamphlets issued by ft and circulated in Calcutta appeared the following:

i. 11 ' Hem fulfil tin’s mission and gainer arms. If swords are denied et daggers dash; and if guns are prohibited, let bombs boom. Mark ye martyrs, mark well this wretch Kinastord, flymg from Calcutta! Follow Ivhudirara, follow Prafulla. follow the renegade fast! Fast is he pursued thunders forth the bomb, the renegade escapes, but the blood is shed and attempt is well made.

It was time that Mr Shyamaii Krishnavarma was struck off the roll of English barristers. °