The Union Jack.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 21, 28 July 1911, Page 13

The Union Jack.

By ZENA NORTON. It is very commonly reported amongst all English speaking people that tho Union Jack stands for freedom, but that is a very mistaken view ani is only put forAvard by persons who are quite ignorant of the true position. Freedom does not mean protection for one class, but protection for all. Fifty years ago, the Bishops in England opposed a law granting education to the Avorkers because they 50.."! Ged had ordained the poor to be poor always. In England to-day, one million married women work in factories and work-shops. One million people of England are always on the verge of starvation. Millions of babies perish before they reach their first anniversaries. Our AA'-orkhouses and asylums are to-day crowded with victims of Capitalism, which is exactly Avhat the Union Jack stands for. Millions of the school children go hungry to school every day, half naked. The flag that waves over such poverty and misery Avhere millions of men cannot get enough work to buy food for themselves, let alone their little babies, cannot be called free. The black man in the South Sea Islands who does not know hoAV to say his A. B. 0., or does not know how to count up to 4, can always get sufficient food for his children and himself. But in England, ev>u under the Union Jack, they cannot do even this. Why should men who Avork the hardest get the smallest pay, an I those who do not work at all f;et millions of money ? That is not air and cannot be called freedom. What difference does it make to a poor man what flag he starves to death under? He does not get a better seat in heaven because he dies "with the Union Jack waving over his poor dead body. The only flag that stands for freedom is the Red Flag of the workingclass of the world. ~ Under that flag everybody would have enough food to live on. Nature has provided us children Avith sufficient for all our wants, but this right has been- denied us by the greedy people of the world AA'ho teach us to sing of the freedom of the Union Jack. God, who made all of us, intended the innocent and helpless children to starve to death whilst others live in luxury. If this is so, then my Sunday teacher taught me"wrong. In my opinior. Aye have a great duty as children to perform and that is to support a flag that stands for peace and plenty for all, that will give every child the right to live in proper conditions, and that will give every child the right to go to school. That flag is not the Union Jack, but the plain Red Flag of Socialism.