What May Be Expected From Labour

Hokitika Guardian, 27 October 1928, Page 7

What May Be Expected From Labour

THE OPPOSITION LEADER’S

OPINIONS

MR HOLLAND’S ATTITUDE AT

THE 1913 STRIKE.

(Strike started ‘23rd October, 1913),

From New Zealand Times, October 31st, 1913, Mr H. E. Holland’s speech: “He challenged the Government to furnish the names, addresses, and occupations ‘of special constables. If a list were printed it would show that some of these special constables were men who had served sentences for sheep stealing.” Mr Holland charged with sedition. From the report of the New Zealand Times, December 6th, 1913: That on October 26th at Wellington he uttered certain seditious words, to wit: — “The watersiders agreement was broken when the men were obliged to take a day off when Mr Liver-

pool (Lord Liverpool), the gilded popinjay, the figurehead of Capitalism in New Zealand, landed here. And the same thing occurred when Sir Joseph Ward’s Dreadnought called. I remind them (meaning the police) of the words used by me at Broken Hill, in Australia, on the occasion when I was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on a charge of sedition. I told the miners “if they hit you with a baton, hit them with a pick handle, and have the pick at ithe end of it.’ Here is your opportunity you John Hops (meaning the police) though the employers want to give you a miserable 8s per days, and the souls Plnd clothes of a slave, and want you to scab on labour.” Mr Holland further charged:— “That at Wellington (Newtown Park) on November 2nd, 1913, in the presence of a large crowd of waterside-workers, on strike and others in making a public speech to the crowd did utter certain seditious words, to wit:—‘Wellington has seen what is unique in Australia. You have a gatling gun on the wharf to-day, and there isi one on the turret of the Post Office, they tell us. When Massey’s Cossacks come down upon us, I was going to say men, but I don’t want to be guilty of libel. The 2,000 men offering in the Waikato are heroes, because they will come fully armed, provided Mr Massey gives them full protection. If free labourers are put on they will work with a revolver in their, belts, and a bludgeon alongside them and anyone who attempts (to interfere with them can be shot by them. I urge the Navals present (meaning the sailors from His Majesty’s sliip, Psyche, that is lying in the port of Wellington aforesaid) when they are ordered to shoot Jfco remember where their class interests are, and to point their guns accordingly.

The railway men should not carry free labourers. Let the trains rol and rust. The strike was not made by the working class, but by the master class, who are pouring their armed hundreds into Wellington, not in the daylight but like thieves in the night, coming utterly ashamed of the work they are undertaking. They sneak in in the midnight hours, but old greyhaired women come out on the balconies and jeer at them as they pass. The railway men have said they are prepared to stop the trains, the drivers can

stop the carts, and the seamen the ships. Uniformed ‘police '.can deal

a staggering blow by tearing oh

their uniforms and standing with the watersiders. We are going to win, and by God we are going to do it, no matter what means we are going to use.’'