THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, MAY 4, 1931. A SINISTER FESTIVAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20863, 4 May 1931, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, MAY 4, 1931. A SINISTER FESTIVAL.

May Day, observed by* militant Labour in many countries as an annual occasion of demonstrative outbursts, lias passed without adding much to the grim chronicles of the date. There have been the usual attempts to make an impressive display of violent strength, even a frankly menacing attitude in some countries democratic enough to know better, but police vigilance has prevented serious consequences. Moscow has enjoyed its customary parade—the day is an official holiday in Russia —with a spectacular appeal to Bolshevik sentiment. In Italy, to note another extreme, the day has been no different from other days, for there its observance has been forbidden and the traditional date of the foundation of Rome substituted in the festal calendar. A few riots in European cities, a drastic prevention of anticipated disorder in Japan and a firm handling of aggressive Communists in Australia, compose nearly all the rest of the story this year. The hopes once held of making May Day a time for the triumphant assertion of lawlessness seem doomed, in spito of organised ebullitions of revolt through many years. When the first congress of the Second (Paris) Socialist International, in ISS9, chose May Day as the date for its annual demonstrations, there was possibly some thought of linking these with the age-old Continental festivals of the day in celebration of the passing of winter —the "expulsion of death" —but this connection is purely arbitrary. Robert Owen, when in 1833 he appointed May Day as the date for the beginning of the millennium, was probably actuated by a similar idea, no better based. The plain truth is that, whatever the intent of the innovators, the celebrations have now a sinister character, and police surveillance, even suppression, needs little argument in justification. At the initiating Paris congress, indeed, this character was openly intended, for there was given by it an injunction that affiliated groups of workers should, by direct action, enforce the general observance of May Day as a holiday,, no matter on what day of the week it should happen to fall.

In the Sydney demonstration, with its crude weapons carried in procession, its provocative placards and offensive speeches, there is consequently an evidence of the challenging spirit in which this international Labour Bay was instituted. The organisers of this demonstration have made no secret of what they would do if they had the power; they have been at pains, indeed, to declare their contempt for law and their determination to flout it as far as they are able. Their attitude is to be taken as typical of the baser element seeking to dominate the councils and the conduct of Laibour. Happily, their influence is lifcfiited. It is but a fraction of the class they seek to dragoon that is willingly swayed by them, a section whose ignorance makes it an easy prey to deceptive and inflammatory agitation. With the spread of education this pernicious influence is bound to be reduced and eventually extinguished. But education is seldom a rapid process. Minds are prone to be shut by prejudice, and there is always some degree of inertia to be overcome. To expect a general and cordial welcome for even economic truth, much as it partakes of the nature of pure science, would be contrary to experience as well as reasonable hope. A test case is provided by the general strike. Little study is required to discover that this sort of industrial upheaval can never succeed. The truth about its futility as well as its immorality has been expounded, time and again, by eminent and trusted leaders of Labour. Mr. Mac Donald has so written : so has Mr. Snowden, with elaborate detail. On the folly of the so-called sympathetic strike there has been equally convincing exposition, and even the inherent weakness of the strike in any form as a weapon of industrial reform has been shown. Yet, as soon as circumstances seem to justify direct action, there is reckless recourse to the old suicidal methods of attack, in the face of all the sober counsel, in explicit writing, by those whose word might have been expected to carry great weight:. In view of these happenings, to oxpoet that the State will lie speedily freed from the risk of violent assault is to neglect the teaching of J acts. For many a day there will be need to counter such ass'ault with organised force, to meet the 'attack with the weapons it selects, to take, ample physical precaution against the wrecking of law and order. The necessity is regrettable, but it is undeniable. Every year May Day demonstrations bear their witness to the need. They may, as in this year, seem to be fading in ardour and influence : but this must be attributed to the capable efforts to cope with them, not to any diminution of the lawless spirit* they betoken. In one respect, they arc to be welcomed : they serve to reveal a peril that otherwise might be unsuspected, to keep the minds of the law-abiding awake to the desirability of being on guard. Current events, in the Fast as well as the West, sliow that violent assaults in the name of Labour are to-day much more than local outbreaks of lawlessness. They are prompted, organised, directed, in large measure, bv Soviet Russia, bent on a crusade of world-wide sabotage. It is salutary to have this so naively acknowledged, as- in the instance of the Sydney demonstrations. To be forewarned is to be fore armed, and even the milder lessons of this May Day can be learned with that advantage.