THE I.W.W. AND CONSCRIPTION.

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 847, 29 September 1916, Page 6

THE I.W.W. AND CONSCRIPTION.

A Lesson from Australia

IT is quite clear that the forces of ori ganised disorder and disloyalty in Australia are to be massed in deadly enmity to conscription. Both in Melbourne and Sydney the disloyalists are openly and impudently active. One great labour organisation, the Wharf Labourers' Union —there seems' to be something specially sympathetic to the cause of industrial strife, and' disloyalty, in the average Wharf Labourers' Committee ;"J.loom —has solemnly- deposed Mr. Hughes from the position of President. Another union has suspended a Mr. Spence, who dared to vote for the Referendum, from a similar office. At Sydney a leading anti-conscription advocate threatens the formation of a new Labour Party, which, by the way, would be the very best thing for Australia, that coiild happen. • Other instances of the open disloyalty of a large section of the Australian Labour Party might be quoted, but'the above will suffice-

It is good that amidst all this turmoil we can read of the firm action taken by the Sydney police, who ; have raided the local headquarters of the 1.W.W., of dynamiting and assassination notoriety, and arrested four prominent members of this infamous organisation on a charge of treason. There is here a .lesson which the National Government .of the country could very well take to heart. It is alleged that at the private —not the public, they are too .cun-

ning for that of the reyoluV'.. "■ tiohary Socialist Party;- in Wellington the most seditious speeches are deliv- - , ered, and- it is also notorious that , : quite a number of young , men, of military age, have been affected thereby. ,' The I.W.W. element is hot openly mischievous in Wellington beyond in— dulging in the ; silly, , if offensive, , practice of posting seditious placards on 'the wharf, but it is ; Avorking underground all the same. 'At"th'e time of the last- great strike, Mr. /■ Herdman, as > Minister in charge of the Police;: acted vpromptly _and drastically; and, as we all know, with determination: and .good result. We look- to liim to instruct the- /•

police to root out neck and .crop the "seditious and treasonable {influences" which are now at work' right here in Wellington. - .