NEW ZEALAND OR RUSSIA?

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6493, 13 April 1908, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND OR RUSSIA?

In the remarks made by Professor Sviatlowsky to an interviewer of the “Now Zealand Times” the intelligent labour advocates of this country will easily recognise a strong indictment of their own methods. Professor Sviatloweky was not ashed to onticisa tihe leaders ol the labour movement in tbis Dominion, nor did he so much as refer to them, for the simple reason that he is only a visitor and has not yet studied our institutions sufficiently to criticise them. But in his explanation of the ideals of the organised workers of his own country and his reference to the unworthy spirit which dominates the labour movement in America, we fancy the intelligent worker ol this country will find something to make him blush with selfconsciousness. Never since the beginning of trades unionism in New Zealand has it been so transparent as it is to-day that the sole actuating motive of the great majority of the organised workers of this country is an increase of wages and a shortening of hours. Before the labour unions had given themselves over to be the docile tools of the labour agitators this 'was not so apparent; but in the last few years, since the agitators have found it less easy to obtain "further extensions of the privileges and advantages which the industrial courts gave them so liberally in the first few years of their existence, the labouring class have admitted by their complaints and lawlessness that all they really expect of organisation, all they really ask of the machinery of conciliation and arbitration, is a continuous extension of their material remuneration.

What has organised labour in Now Zealand done towards improving the education and the standard of efficiency of the workers ? The Trade® Councils have held aloof from the great duty of educating their fellows. They have degenerated from councils of labour to hotbeds of agitation and political intrigue. The very men who have gathered together and passed resolutions denouncing the Czar and deploring the lot of the workers of Russia now stand accused of having done less of their moral duty towards their own fellows in New Zealand than the Trades Councils of Russia have done for the meujik. The worker of Russia appears, from Professor Sviatlov/sky’s narrative, to be 6n a plane decidedly higher than that of the worker ot New Zealand, for the simple reason that h© is actuated by worthier ideals, that his nethods of gaining advancement one the methods of education and self-enlightenment, which must eventually triumph over the purely sordid aims cf the New Zealand worker.

We can freely acquit the labour leaders of New Zealand of anything in tho nature of intriguing with tho capitalists and bartering the interests nf their fellows in the manner so astutely implied by Professor Sviatlowsky when he refers to the “business” of the American leaders. But it would be in possible to acquit them of sacrificing the interests of their fellows, in a manner even more vital, by placing the continuous demand for more wages before the cardinal necessity of improving the status of the workers by education, reading, and technical training. The organisation of labour in New Zealand has become simply a machine for demanding money from the employers of labour, ignoring every activity that might tend to improve the lot of the worker by improving the man.

The present policy of the labour leaders can only have one result. It must make the workers indefinitely the tools of the employers, because it does not fit them either to be better and more valuable servants or to be intelligent enough to negotiate with the employers for themselves, which is the underlying principle of industrial conciliation. The workers of New Zealand have given their allegiance to men whose aims are diverse, and whoso interest it is to encourage strife rather than mutual understanding. That is an unassailable reason why the Russian worker, who is striving to remedy evil by attacking it at its root of ignorance, must inevitably and soon be a more efficient worker than the New Zealander. Governments and parliaments can protect the lower classes from oppression for the time being, but they cannot raise • their standard and ensure their future happiness unless the workers will assist themselves. Have the workers' of New Zealand rssisted themselves during the last fifteen years?