THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

Evening Star, Issue 21628, 25 January 1934, Page 2

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

[Bj J.S.S.) Brief contributions on matters with reference to Ibo Labour Movement are invited. CANADIAN SLUMP. Purchasing power of Canadian workers Ims dropped approximately £150,000,000 since 1929, according to figures gathered from official sources. This huge sum, equal to £ls annually for every man, woman, and child in the dominion, is one of the main contributing factors to the present business depression. Returns to the various workmen’s compensation boards by employers reveal that from 1929 to the end of 1932 there has been a decline in pav rolls from approximately £188,400,000 to £91,400,000. Pay rolls for the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba and tho steam railways arc not included. Earnings of rail employees dropped approximately £27,600,000 _ in 1932, as compared with 1929. Thc building trades have suffered tremendously. In 1929 their pay rolls in all provinces except Quebec and Manitoba totalled £17,400. In 1932 the total was only £5,000,000, a shrinkage of over 70 per cent. * • « • VERDICT AGAINST LABOUR PARTY. In a judgment that took more than forty minutes to deliver, Mr Justice Gavan Duffy, in Melbourne recently, awarded a former Labour Premier (Mr Hogan) damages of Is, with costs, for an infringement of his rights against the Central Executive of the Australian Labour Party. He also found that Mr Hogan was entitled to have his name submitted to a ballot as a candidate for Warreuheip. Grenville, and that the defendants had deprived him of that right, and consequently of his chance of being chosen as a Labour candidate. Judge Duffy also said that in excluding Mr Hogan from the Australian Labour Party the executive acted contrary to the rules of the society. He held that the matter was not one for the granting of an injunction, and that the declaration of that right could not now he regarded as an equitable remedy. The defendants were the members of the Central Executive of the Labour Party, which was an incorporated association, and they were sued as such. • • • • TREK TO QUEENSLAND. That Queensland is the best State in the Commonwealth, in the opinion ot Australians, is clearly shown by the northward trek year after year. Queensland gains population by immigration from the other States, all ot which are losing ground in this way. Here arc the figures of the Commonwealth Statistician for three successive vears (1930, 1931, 1932). showing the gains of Queensland by net unniioration (excess of immigration over emigration) and the net losses ot all other States by excess of emigration over immigration:— Queensland. 4,013, 3,361. 546; total net gain in three years, '.920. Now South Wales, 7,340, 9,104 1,19-; total net loss in three years. 17,686. Victoria, 2,430, 1,985, 475; total net loss 4,890. South Australia, 2,913, 1,013, .'56; total net loss 4,682. Western Australia, 622, 2,929, 1,'44, total net loss, 5,295. Tasmania, 892 (loss), 404 (gam); 385 (loss) ; total net loss, 873, That tho process is continuing is shown bv the .figures for. the first six months of 1933 (the latest available). Queensland gained 3,932 by net immigration. Victoria gained LO2l and Western Australia 156; but New South Wales lost 4,275, South Australia 497, and Tasmania 4,205. With the highest birth rate of any State except Tasmania, the lowest death rate without any exception, and the highest net immigration, Queensland’s population is increasing at a faster rate than that of any State. * * * * AMERICAN LABOUR’S BOYCOTT. The New York correspondent of the ‘Sydney Labour Daily’ writes;—To circumvent tbe boycott of German goods by the American Federation of Labour in the name of four million members of the Federation, German importers in the United States have been removing labels Ironi goods shipped from Germany to this country. The principal offenders have been importers of gloves, clothing, jewellery and bric-a-brac. As soon as they found that American public opinion was hostile to Nazi products, the importers began to remove the labels from German goods, and, in the case of gloves, removed the cuffs and substituted American made cuffs. German goods are now reaching the United States bearing tags , instead of the familial “ Made in Germany ” stamp. The importers have adopted these tactics to avoid making a loss on large German stocks. This, however, is in defiance ot the terms of tbe 1930 tariff law, which requires all imports to bear the imprint of the exporting country. The matter is being investigated by tbe Government, and arrests may follow. In the closing session of the American Federation of Labour meeting in Washington on October 13, President William Green made an impassioned plea that the Federation join with other public-spirited organisations and officially boycott Germanmade goods and services. He brought a wide-spread indictment against Hitler for smashing the half-century old German trade unions, torturing and gaoling the leaders, seizing their funds and disrupting the entire trade union movement that had been built up so patiently and thoroughly by its leaders in Germany. a • • • • SOCIALISTS AND NAZIS. There is no effective opposition in Germany, nothing . that can, as yet, hold up the Nazis in their advance or prevent them from consolidating their victory (writes the Berlin correspondent of the ‘Manchester Guardian’). Nevertheless, the German Labour movement is not dead. It has begun a new life under conditions of poverty, dan-o-er, and hardship wholly different from those of the past. The S.P.D. are still in a condition of disarray. They were able to save a large part of their funds. The executive was transferred to Prague, but their contact with the Socialist workmen in Germany is still slight. The new ‘ Vonvaerts,’ of which an edition so small that it can be enclosed in an ordinary letter, is printed and smuggled into Germany, is beginning to have n circulation, but it is not read nearly as much as the ‘ Rote Fahne.’ The Socialists are always much freer from unreliable members than the Communists. Although German Socialist workmen have, inwardly at least, discarded their former leaders, they have, for the most part, remained staunchly Socialist at heart. With their organisation destroyed, with their leaders gone, and with no funds in the country, they are compelled to begin afresh. They have succeeded in

holding some big mass meetings, publicly though in various kinds of disguise (the details cannot ho given here, for they would lead to detection by the Nazis). The S.A.P. are a small group that broke away from the S.P.D. more than a year ago. They almost faded out of existence, but bad a slight revival under the dictatorship. They exist only .in a few towns, notably Breslau. There they are the only Labour Party with any organisation left, although hundreds of their members have been arrested, put to torture, and imprisoned. The S.A.P. circulates excellent typewritten and hcctographed news-sheets. The S.A.J. are a rather formless movement, but are none the worse for that in a period when all old forms must change and be renewed. They include the stauncher amongst the young generation of German Socialists, with a sprinkling of older and experienced men. They are beginning to take shape in different parts of the country. Contracts arc being established, a courier service is being organised, typewritten, and hectograpbed literature is being circulated. The typical S.A.J. man recognises both the weakness and the merits of the defunct Republic. He studies the present situation objectively despite his burning hatred of the dictatorship. He believes that German labour must begin all over again, and must discover new methods of waging class war. The old leaders are, to him, no more than a shadowy recollection, and be sheds no tears over the dead trade unions. He runs no needless risks, but is unflinching when risks are needed. The illegal work of the S.A.J. is already taking on new forms that include ingenious methods of sabotage and ca’ canny (but here again precise!’ details must be withheld). Generally speaking, the more resolute, courageous, and intelligent German workmen —and they must be numbered by hundreds of thousands—have remained steadfast despite the terror. And, although the terror grows steadily worse, and mere fact that it is possible

to hold meetings, to distribute literature, to elude and hoodwink the Brown Shirts or the Gestapo has produced a certain hopefulness amid defeat and disaster Those who are now struggling against the. ’ Hitlerite dictator’Germany are men and women of indomitable heroism. That there are so manv is, considering the ruthless efficiency of the terror, almost miraculous and proof that there is another Germany ” after all.