The Maoriland Worker WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1919. WORLD REVOLUTION OR WORLD DOWNFALL?

Maoriland Worker, Volume 10, Issue 421, 2 April 1919, Page 4

The Maoriland Worker WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1919. WORLD REVOLUTION OR WORLD DOWNFALL?

j In this God's World, with its wildwhirling , eddies and mad foam oceans, 1 where men and nations perish as if without law, and judgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think that there is therefore no justice ? It is what the fool hath said in his heart. It is what the wise in all ages have been wise because they denied and knew forever not to be. I tell thee again there is nothing- else but justice, Thomas Carlyle.

Nothing else but justice! Sublime hyperbole, based on a deeprooted faith that this .world is not a fortuitous concourse of warring atoms, but a Cfod-macle world, made for a purpose, which purpose will yet emerge, clear and radiant as the light of day. In these days it needs a strong faith indeed to believe in a moral la.iv or providential order of the universe. The world .seem?; slipping back to barbarism and anarchy and a state of things typical of the good old clays, when every mails-hand was against his neighbor's. . . The thinking man, surveying the state of the world at the present moment, sees a condition of affairs that tends to upset all his inherited and acquired ideas. The world is in the melting-pot■ thrones that have stood the stress and storm of centuries have been tumbled into the dust; proud nobles of a once mighty empire have been forced to sweep the streets for a (•rust: biijh duchesses, whose one function in life was to make the idle life one of pomp and riotous pleasure and false magnificence, have been tried by a jury of the common people for their lives. The ideas and institutions that upheld the thrones and the hereditary privileges of czar and aristocrat and capitalist have been rudely shaken, have been ehaUongec!, and in Russia at least have been ruthlessly swept aside as having no natural right or sanction. The bloody anarchy of the field of battle has invaded civil life, and the hellish spirit of war, let loose, is ravening through The nations of Europe, like a mad wolf seeking whom lie may devour. Having' laid Germany low for the time btkig, the AUks would fain have peace—that is, the kind of peace the ruling classes desire. But they cannot have it—not at the price they offer. The moral cost of the war has to be paid for, and Labor, consciously and subconsciously, for the first time in the history of the world, is demanding that the moral cost of, the war shall be met, by Hiose who invoiced war, and those who made profit cmt of it. All wars arc unrighteous—no matter how righteous may be the motive that impels any man. or nation to fight—and the best that can be said 01 war from the Allies' standpoint is that it was a necessary evil forced 113? on them. Like all previous ware, it was fought out between the toiling masses of 'M-o fighting nations, who had no quarrel with each other. To the Socialist this is a tragedy that fills his heart v/ith despair, and makes him feel like the poet Cowper when he wrote: —- O for a lodge in some vast wiidorne:;-, Some boundless contiguity of shade. Where rumor of oppression and deceit. Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach mc more! Having for countless ages waged war for their governors, without troubling themselves about the reason, or claiming a share of the spoils, the toilers of some of the nations of Europe are beginning to ask whether it were not more profitable to Avage war for themselves rather than for the superior persons who presume to have the power of life and death over them. This tendency is regarded as very immoral by the ruling classes—but the thinker will realise that in the unnatural circumstances it is what is generally called "natural," and therefore inevitable. If persisted in, it will make war unprofitable to the capitalists, and. the curious state of affairs may be reached when the captains of industry shall be the "pacifists" of the future, and the proletariat will carry it on purely for business purposes. Critics of the revolutionary worker. 1 : regard them as criminals because they are seeking to abolish the existing social system. Deeply convinced as we arc-that the existing state of society is vicious and unjus.t, we cannot agree with these critics. -Cor can we agree with the accepted idea that the existing code of law and morals is heavenordained, and that any attempt to amend it is wrong and must be put down. Rather do we believe that the codes of the day are very imperfect, wholly unfitted for the needs of the present generation, and that they keep humanity in bondage to the spirit of the the Past. These codes are human—all too human. They are stamped with the weaknesses of man, and the brutal standards of generations that are numbered with the dead, but which keep a ruthless hold on the Living Present. The. old order changes because it must, because such is the oppointed course of things. The." absolute need for a new order of society is being written in letters of blood throughout the length and breadth of Europe, where Feudalism, entrenched behind age-long privilege, is fighting its last and losing battle. Nature warns man to put his house in order or suffer the penalty. The very fact that anarchy prevails instead oi: peaceful human society proves that something is wrong. What is wrong.' The reply is that the laws of true social life have been broken: that nations have been established on wrong aud unenduring principles, and that robbery and murder.have been sanctioned by the laws of nations as lawful k> -certain circumstances. No law whatever can make robbery and murder anything but what they are —ghastly crimes against the laws of social life. They do not cease to be crimes by being legalised—not even by the counting of innumerable heads, irrespective of the contents of the heads. Robbery or murder, whether ordered by imperial crowned head, prime minister or president of sham democracies, or JBolshevik dictator, do not cense to be robbery <>v murder, and under any other name would slink in i.he nostrils of mankind and .suioH as offensively to heaven. Revolutions, peaceful and bloody, arc inmit-'jhi'-, and the "Aovid •Jrust get used to them. The ai.itocracko of the day, under whatever lame they go by, will not # wiliingly give up tbo power to commit limv\er and robbery, i£ ilv. same will pi'odmo divirk-ntK "Bat •■;■■; Ili'j ■rorker.s of tho world ere long will :.;efu:-.c- to do -this dirty work tor \em, it is certain, thai nioit; honest method:; 01 business ziiusi be Adopted by the predatory maii of commerce, faced with social revoluszk which menaces hi-i.novart oi exDioilation, Bev.olutiqii is going pn

I ;o-day at a great, rate: revolution in the minds and thoughts of men, revolution in governments, revolution in the polity o.C nations. 11 ■ verc to be wished thiit the only force used in the necessary suir'uil revolutions of to-day and to-morrow wen; Ihc for<-e of reason, of ■■ f Hind argument, of truth and justice, that will stand the test oi tiros and nature. But man is an imperfect being, and his progress is slow. Still, as he has progressed from a hairy savage living in woods a> a civilised dweller iv cities, there is no reason to doiibt that, if he uses his brains, he may discover ways and means of living without >var, without superior persons of any kind, Avithout cut-throat competition, and Avithout the need of wasting his life iv a mad scramble for the Avherewithal to keep life going. ( Man's nature has been A-.itiated and corrupted by laws rooted in injustice, and founded on immoral principles" having no sanction but time-honored precedent, Until men have clear conceptions of social justice, the laws of to-day, which, sanction the existence of classes, and class privileges and class ! institutions, will prevail, and social peace and harmony will be impossible. It is in the very nature of man to rebel against these things. That divine discontent Avith the existing social order is not to be lightly regarded, or sAvept aside by minds that cannot, conceive that the communities of the day arc built on shifting sands rather than on the rock of eternal justice. Henceforth Avorld revolution -will go on until societies that sanction militarism and capitalism disappear from the earth. A British revolution is going on to-day. It began before the Avar, and Avill go on, peacefully or otherwise, until the rotten social system of Britain goes the way" of the Hoheiizollerns and the Romanoffs and the Hapsburgs. Nothing is more certain than that. It is certain also that the aristocrats and capitalists Avill fight desperately against, every attempt to Avrest their unjust privileges from them. Whether the British revolution avj'U be accomplished iv. our generation or not avc do not presume to say, but we have long held the opinion that if Britain escapes a bloody revolution of the most awful character something like a niiracJe must happen. Not for much longer Avill the workers of Britain shoot and slay at the behest of their governors, and ■when the Avorkers of Britain rise in. a mass—as they will do one day if urged too strongly, they will see the social revolution through to a finish. America has sown (he seeds of revolution for. many years, and the harvest is ready to appear. France, Spain, and other European nations noAV quiet will flame into revolution at any moment. The Avhole world is in a ferment of revolution; revolution is necessary to save humanity from a relapse into barbarism. Capitalism and militarism, the twin enemies of Labor and the hitman race Avere never stronger. Yet, to the seeing eye, they Avere never weaker. They suffer from apoplexy, a plethora of blood in the head. A paroxysm may ensue at any time, caused by too much gorging of human flesh, and these two demons may be destroyed by the blood they have shed so freely, which lies even now on the bosom of our common mother, the earth, which will not cover it up from the sight; of 'an avenging heaven.