Working Class Slavery

Northern Advocate, 3 January 1941, Page 4

Working Class Slavery

HITLER, who is promising a New Order and a New Deal for the world, has had an excellent chance of demonstrating his ideal of a New Order within the Reich. It is interesting to examine the lot of the masses—of the working people—under the regime Hitler would now extend and apply to all countries by force of conquest.

Germany, it is recalled, once had one of the most powerful trade union movements in the world, a historic fact sometimes forgotten. The German Republic (1918-1933) placed labour under thq special protection of the State, and guaranteed . the right of- association to safeguard and improve labour conditions. Then came the Nazis. They hated the labour movement for many reasons. The real or fundamental reason is found in the party’s opposition to any organisation that seeks to maintain the rights of any group or class of the people. The Nazi ideal for human society is the ant-heap. There must be no individuals, no social groups with power to organise. All must be animated by the one mind—the mind of the Fuehrer, and those behind him. Hitler assumed the Chancellorship in February, 1933. On May 2 of that year trade union buildings throughout Germany were occupied by the police and trades union leaders arrested. Less than two weeks later, all trade union property was confiscated—not only the property of the allegedly revolutionary free unions, but that of the Christian unions and liberal unions sls well. • ' . - , v

In' July, 1933, the formation of new parties was forbidden. The working men of Germany became impotent to work for decent conditions.. The workers reverted to serfdom, or worse. The Nazi Party has made the working day longer, the standard of living lower, and ordered the workers to close their ears to all criticism of the party, in other words, they must regard themselves as marionettes. '

Yet the leader of the Nazi Party speaks of inaugurating a new order in the world. It is an order with which the world will have no association. Of that Hitler has been given ample proof already. o ' * .