In Our Opinion

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 72, 26 July 1912, Page 1

In Our Opinion

LOOK at the hundreds of thousands of strikers of 'Britain fighting valiantly for their cause, and then think, that if wo can't win in New Zealand for only two thousand men we ought? to be ashamed. ' 4 rpHE men of Wailri and Reefton will, **• never give in. Lot there bo 10 mistake about it. It's the FederaVon v. all-comers. Let the Federation be "downed" and the working-class will le put back a generation. AN interesting sidelight on the way all members of the U.L.P. HAVE; to sign its pledge'is afforded by the way the "Wellington Seamen's Union was "roped in" without the membereliip knowing it. rpHE cabled information that the *■ Kins "wanted most of all to share the risks his miners had to undergo" is drawing with a vengeance on even the average worker's beautiful credulity. Sure. A SAMPLE of Millsitis: "One way raise the standard of living is to raise the windows." Daily Page economics 1 Reminds us that the doctors say to the sick, "Opon your windows!" but they don't provide extra blankets for the beds. 4 . OH, those journalists!—the crowd who of all crowds ought to gracefully take a few hard knocks of the many they give. Yet no crowd so "touchy," apparently. Their letter to Secretary Glover earns the remark: "Don't be silly." + ""\TO one cares what becomes of his ■*■ body at death, but wo all car© lor the health of the living, and in this we have the support of all sanitarians." These words, taken from the annual report of the Cremation Socity of New South Wales, embody the ideas of the "cromationists." The committee of the society expresses the hope that the several States will wake up and demand modern sanitary methods in the dis-, pesal of the dead, and in this hope The "Worker fervently concurs. Just a littlo more education is needed to overcome musty tradition and age-old, prejudice, and we shall see tho aims and ideas of the society realised in the establishment of a crematorium in. ©very large centre of population throughout Australasia. Eeep 'believing—and doing 1

M.OW m-o know how the httle, * man :of Illtalkec .-got his title, it "was conferred on him by all the people and not by a ■ section ;of it." Picture; t-lic 90 million citizens of the United States tumbling over' ono another in their frantic .oagerJiess.to confer the doubtful dignity of .a professorship on such a prodigy of a pundit as Walter Thomas. Isn't it' rich r 1 The idea mnkos us' smile out loud. f(:i. !i;> ! A:-. He, he. Likewise Ho, hoi But they -grow ; professoi's like ■,y//{A W.T. by -the thousand in America. The woods arc full of them. Every oheapjaek and. charlatan, every mouutobankof a medi-' cine man, every 'lightning tooth extrac- ■ tor. every .one-night oorn-curer, every whilc-you-.wait tonsorial artist is .a! "professor"—when lie isn't a "doctor."

/~1HIL1) soldiers have again been fill-' ing tho Christclmrch Court. In trying them, Mr. Bailey complained of .the "flippancy" of a Jad who had! pleaded that he had to 'Support his mother. There is a new commandment in this country. "Honor thy commanding officer" has replaced the out-of-date "Honor thy father and mother/ fJIHE linotype plays some fantastic tricks at times, but in its u-iiprc-: meditated mix-ups it often arrives at the truth. An illustration of this catches our optics in tho "West Coast Times," the type-setting machine of which is responsible for setting forth the true name and character of the Mills organisation as "the United LbaortarPu— y?" Very much mixed, ieu't it? —as mixed as the party's publicists, its apologists, its politics, and its principles. Tho necessity of the note of interrogation is quite evident. ♦ TIERE'S a resolution for anti-militar-ist bodies to carry, publish, and send to tho local member of Parliament: "This organisation emphatically protests against the contemplated imprisonment of defaulters under the Defence Act in military camps or barracks as proposed in Parliament. It wishes to point out to the Government, to members of Parliament, and to the public tho increasing barbarity necessitated in enforcing compulsory military service on the youth of the Dominion—a compulsion repugnant to past generations of tho British people, the freedom from which has rightly been amongst tho most cherished possessions of our race." of tho most interesting of the " decisions of the recent interstate conference in Sydney which resulted in tho establishment, of tho Australian United Laborers' Union was that members of Parliament should have no part in tho official destinies of tho union. "In no case," it declared., "shall a member of Parliament hold office, or sit on conference. Should any official of tl»e union attain parliamentary honors the executive shall immediately fledlarc ;sucli office vacant." Tho objection to parliamentary representatives being concerned in tho affairs of tlie union was that they exercise an aanueuce against militant unionism, ■and who can deny that this has always fofcon Hhe case in Australia, as every-

where else ? It will be sq in New Zealand—is so now—with the sight and sense of the Youngs and tho Careys and the Reardons dazzled and obfuscated by the golden glamor of a prospective political prize of £300 a year and a free railway pass—the carrot held alluringly before tho donkey's nose-for would-be parliamentarians would seem to be as enervating an influence in the unions as those who have climbed the dizzy heights of political ambition to 101 l luxuriously on a plush-covered seat in the House of Jaw. The United Laborers' Union has wisely "ta&en a tumble" to the 'sap-i ping of the fighting sprritof unionism l by politically-crazy Laborites, and has also boldly avowed its aim to be "the ultimate emancipation of Labor by the abolition df *he -wage *ydtem." More; power to its elhow 1

TT is for the women of New Zealand to defend, not only their sons, but their husbands. The other week at Christdburch a pretty j-oung wife with downcast 'head stood up in court as substitute for the absent worker. He had had no job for three months, sho pleaded, and now he had 14 horses to tend in the evening. He could not drill. Mr. Bailey imposed the usual fine, and insisted, in a well-known phrase, that 'lie must make some other arrangement." It sounds easy. The best and only arrangement should be the repeal of the Defence Act.

fTWUTH will out. We were suspicious when we heard that General Godley approved of tho "demilitarisation of tho Junior Cadets." We now knowf the reason. It is that the Junior} Cadets Slave *een .under ;a "bogus <amd!

anomalous military organisation," which he "cannot recognise. He is enormously interested" in them, but ho "could not accept any form of milsary training set tip independently of the military organisation. The officers carried the titles of officers, but had no commissions" and were not under the 'General's control, which ho could not tolerate. In other words, the dictator's .objection to the -militarisation of the school children .is not based on any conception of the iniquity of teaching children of 12 years of age to learn to .kill their -.fellow-creatures, but is due to a not very high-minded .petulance at not having thorn under his own autocratic rule. The General's statement •that he "cannot recognise" a system ■set up, however wrongly, by the Legislature, is another piece of impertinenco on Jiis *part. The claws, oven at this • early --stage, are occasionally drawn a little way from the velvet glove.

TORIME MINISTER MASSEV. from his proud .pinnacle of portiolio'd pre-eminence, has graciously deigned to honor an admiring community with the sweet-sounding and eye-filling announcement that he lnis "every sympathy with the -genuine aspirations of Labor." Genuine aspirations! Poof! This is one of the ninny cunt phrases of the capitalist class and its sycophantic •hangers-on. The "legitimate rights of Labor" is another. And the "just demands of the workers" is a third. How often have we -heard them. Will Massoy or some of his plutocratic or press pals kindly oblige us with an exact definition of what they consider is embraced in the "genuine aspirations" or "legitimate rights" of Labor? Not long back the claims of Labor were crystallised and trumpeted forth in the cry: "Eight hours' work, eight hours' play, eight hours' sleep and eight bob a day." Barring the fact that lie would probably raise the wages rate to a minimum of 10 bob a day, we can rest assured that Massey's conception of the "genuine aspirations'' of tlio workers is no whit different from that expressed in the old-time claim. But there is nothing "genuine" about aspirations that are so narrowing in their influence as those set forth. They are as spurious as Massoy's alleged sympathy. The only genuine aspirations of the workers are those which aim f.o secure the restriction of compulsory toil to the few hours required to do the- necessary work of the community— tints "ensuring amplo leisure for rest, recreation and the cultivation of all our latent love for and appreciation of nature and the arts—the breaking down of class distinctions and the abolition of the wages system ; in short, which will put an end to the present evil capitalistic state of society and usher in the Co-operative Commonwealth.