CHRISTCHURCH COMMENTS.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 42, 22 December 1911, Page 13

CHRISTCHURCH COMMENTS.

Lessons of the Elections.

And so the elections have come and gone, and everything is as it was before, except, perhaps, that the game of "beggar my neighbour" has stopped for the time being. Two Socialist candidates stood for the Holy City, and although they did not score a thousand votes between them, and although they both lost their deposits, yet most of the comrades acknowledge it was a good, cleaiij healthy fight, and from a propaganda point of view was well worth the price paid, The Class War was preached by our two candidates to thousands of people who had never heard it before, and who would, never have heard it except during an election time, and although the candidates have not converted the people, they have set them thinking and have certainly opened the eyes of th people to the "fakir" class of legislation that has been adopted in the past and proposed for the. future.

Never have candidates had such a hard row to hoe. The people, sick and tired of the despotic Ward Administration, looking for something better; a Labor Party with a fool platform telling the people that it meant "Socialism"; the Liberals offering almost anything but Socialism; the Reform Party holding out a painted bunch of carrots; arid ""then, when our comrades came along and told the people and tried to show them that their only hope lay in Socialism, the few "cuckoos" who follow our camp, who seldom contribute either in cash or kind, and who have never been known to make one convert, followed our candidates yelling "They are self-seekers, vote catchers; don't trust them; you cannot get anything by political action, join something that."—exists only in their own. imagination! We are out for those birds with a double-barrelled gun, and if they will not build a nest for themselves they are going to get some of their feathers knocked off, if they try to foul ours. The Labor Party is doing a lot of crowing over the bis: figures they scor-

Ed at this election I Yet when one begins to look into matters, they have very little to be proud of. True, they are big figures, on paper, but when we realise these numbers are by per* mission of Mr. Massey t it decidedly takes the , gilt tft^fy*ygXQJ!&rbrQajit m jL know these gentlemen will"-not acknowledge' this to be true, and fhfey ti& r to persuade the people that it&g, a' Labor vote, but if Labor is so solid "on, the political field, how do they account* for the unorganised state of the workers on the industrial field? The local Trades Council is in a state of collapse. All the big unions have left, with the exception of the bootmakers. The painters and all the iron trades will be out 'before three months are over; the officials scarcely speak to one another, mutual distrust appears on all sides, and yet they are trying to fool themselves into believing it was a Labor vote! In the ordinary run of things, we have three years in front of us for organising work, "and it is the opinion of very many on this side of the hills that we ought to have an organiser at work purely on the industrial field, helping the unions towards the light, breaking'fresh ground and all the time preaching the Class- War—but there must be no breach between tlTe legitimate Industrial Unionist and the Socialist. There are many good Socialists m our ranks who cannot join the Industrial Unions, not being wage workers. There are the women folk, who cannot join the industrial wing of our army, and yet they understand the fight and are with us"every time. Archibald Forbes, the war' correspondent, said in one of his lectures that the curses of : the English army on the march in times of war was the camp always knew better than any of the generals how the fight ought to be conducted, they were never found in the fighting line, they had to be tuckered, and were always a source of weakness by being in constant communication with the enemy. The same thing applies in "this Class War, the greatest weakness is the camp followers: Never in the fighting line, croaking like frogs in a pond, hiding whenever there is the least sign of trouble, all their sins and shortcomings are piled on to the fighting army. The time lias come when we shall have to adopt some means of getting rid of them, if we want to make any progress whatever. —THE VAG.