A Short-lived Rebellion.

Evening Star, Issue 17921, 17 March 1922, Page 4

A Short-lived Rebellion.

Brief and bloody has been the history of the Band rebellion. On I’riday, March 10, the outbreak began, requiring martial law to be proclaimed. On the 12th General Smuts arrived at Johannesburg. On the 16th it is officially announced that “the revolution is entirely suppressed.” Its promoters—those of them who arc still alive—have reason for pondering now on the old distich; “If so soon I must be done for, I wonder what I was begun for.’ Dupes who followed them, to the number of many thousands, can reflect upon the way in which .they were victimised. The secret history of the revolt is at last coming to light. -As early as 'the last weeks of January it was reported that Nationalist malcontents on the Baud were endeavoring to turn the industrial dispute to political ends, with the object of overthrowing the Smuts Government; but their exhortations were not greeted then with much encouragement. On February 4 the militant section was announced to bo becoming more demonstrative, and it was plain that an attempt was being ma.do to exploit the strike for revolutionary purposes. But a motion of a political extremist that the time had 1 come to put. an end to the “ dominance of the Chamber of Mines and other financiers” and sot up a republic was scouted as the last insanity by both the Nationalist Party and leaders of the Labor Party. It is clear that the counsels of extremists' gained more influence with a portion of the men as chagrin and resentment were produced among them by increasing signs of the hopelessness of their strike, and the statement which has now been made by the Industrial Federation, supplemented by captured documents, shows how the last acts of folly were precipitated. The revolution -engineered by Communists was a revolution against the workers* own body before it became one against the State. The general strike called by the Industrial Federation, it is now revealed, was called by it at' the pistol’s point. Sticks and pistols were used to terrorise the original members of the industrial body by extremists who had Caused themselves to be added to it as a first stop to their object of the terrorism of the 'State. The federation may be inclined now to make the best case for itself, since violence has produced its natural nemesis, but its statement bears no signs of improbability. The last thing that the Communist desires is that the will of the majority should rule, either in workers’ counsels or in the State as a whole. Intimidation by the few who believe in destruction has always been his method. The response to the call for a general strike would have been oven smaller, doubtless, than it was had the workers who obeyed it known how the call was issued. The citizens of all classes and all political opinions who rallied to assist the Government in the suppression of an iniquitous rebellion had good need to protect themselves against a. tyranny worse than any other by which they could bo threatened. The federation has repudiated all responsibility for the rebellion. Captured documents are said to show that the men who made it were fed with foreign money. If the Bolshevik Government has money for such vile machinations it is a pity it does not spend it in its own country, where millions at the present moment are starving. The Melbourne Trades Hall Council finds something to admire in these murderers of natives and sheltercrs behind

women when their own lives were in clanger; but the spirit of Australian Labor extremists has long passed understanding. Compassion can bo felt for the Communists’ dupes.