Truth THE SONOMA SCANDAL.

NZ Truth, Issue 87, 16 February 1907, Page 4

Truth

THE SONOMA SCANDAL.

published eveby saturday moening at Luke's Lane (off Mannebsstbeet), Wellington, N.Z. , . subsobiption (m advance) , 13s . • • : ■ j ;;;^-';-^^EBiJkNNUM^';;--, .;••--.-.-: ~ 4 • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1907. .

THE PRISONING OF PROLETARIANS. "

The*'treatmenit of the unfortunate seamen and ■ firemen pf the Sonoma, who went on strike whilst the vessel was m Sydney harbor, again illustrates tke fact that, there is one law for the landsmen and quite another law for the seafaring man, ; for the 1 gaoled irien have merely, done- . what has been done hundreds , of times ! by landsmen without any of the . consequences tliat have resulted to the men of the Sonoma. When' the landsmen go on strike they lose work- and pay.; and are put to very considerable inconvenience" by their course of conduct, but it is very seldojttr, indeed, that they have to face the inside of a gaol. When" seamen, however, declare that they will': not work, not merely are their places rapidly filled by others, but they . are thriist into a prison cell. ' The law relating to seamen is' one of the laws that should be radically amended at the very earliest opportunity. The seamen and firemen of the Sonoma have been represented by the pinchpenny. press— it is true, m a somewhat oblioue manner— as reckless scallywags, who, m sheer wantonness, "stuck up" the ship, and thus inflicted very considerable loss upon its owners, while they, at the same time, placed themselves m a position that resulted m -their receiving perempt6ry punishment. It is quite clear, however, that the astute persons m control of the Sonoma perceived plainly that the < representative of the men 1 had most egregiously, and badly. blundered m having given a sort of content, promptly repudiated by the men themselves, for the enlargement of non-unionists. That a most serious blunder from the standpoint of Union labor had been made was patently apparent to everyone. The organised unions of the men have never at any (time consented to the employment of non-union labor. On both the Pacific coasts— the Pacific coast of America as well as the Pacific coast of Australia— the organisations of seafarine: men have never left room for the slightest misunderstanding as to their attitude with rejrard' to tlie employment of non-union labor. This being the case— a blunder bcinp: so apparent, and its having been so promptly repudiated by those on whose behalf it was made— the demands of the men should have been conceded m the special circumstances, by those m control of the vessel. .*. . • • That the men were thoroughly m earnest, and were prepared to make very considerable sacrifices, m support of the matter of principle that they were defending, is proved by their conduct. When they went on strike thoy did bo wHb ejaculations

of "Take us to gaol !" and "Put us m prison !" They knew what they were about to do ; the principle for which they were fighting meant- that they would have to suffer the loss of that which most civilised men dread almost as much as loss of life itself, and that is— liberty. Yet, with serene courace. these simple 'seamen, and. poor firemen, sacrificed their liberty and lost every advantage that might have been given to them by acauie'scing in' -the state of things insisted upon by those m control of the vessel, and because of their • adherence to principle they went to prison. Some of these men are foreigners ; but their calm courage and ardent activity on behalf of a valuable economic principle is something of which no English-speaking person might feel ashamed. In fact, it is something which, despite the fact that it has led to a number 'of prisoncells, might even be not considered entirely reprehensible if it were imitated by others. An American philosopher — Thoreau, we believe — said that it was not wise to |)e too ready to obey bad laws. * *•• • . The attitude Qf the Sydney- Seamen's Union has excited considerable comment and decided dissatisfaction among the supporters of unionism. Her^ were a number of men, mostly white men, ori strike asawist the employment of some non-union, For thus going on strike these > men were sent to prison, and, instead of this arousing the utmost hostility on behalf of the organised workers who go "down to the sea m ships," it was actually decided — after a most stormy discussion, it is true— to supply union seamen to take : the place of the other union seamen who, because of their a-dherence to principle, had been immured m a, prison celL The reasons given for this course of conduct on the part of those directing the affairs of the union .were— that, first, there were numerous nonunion seamen to be obtained m the port ; and, second, that it would be establishing a pernicious precedent if a' vessel manned by non-union labor were 'tp be observed entering the port of San Framcisco. These reasons are plausible, it is true ; but they are also sophistical. It is, indeed, highly regrettable that it was possible! to oflnd sufficient non-union laborers '•to man the ship, and thereby enable it to put to sea. But this would not have justified unionists m blacklegging upon unionists ; and, very, properly, .the rank and file of the Seamen's Union took this vieyr themselves, and, until the, very last, minute, refused to ship on the .Sono Inia. , Eventually, the captain of the* Sonoma does. not appear to have got > sufficient men, apparently non-union-ists, to enable him -'to put to sea. But the stamd taken up by the rank and file of' the union is' highly creditable, even though it did riot . sudr oeed. : ' , '■'" ' \. ,■■ •■ ' ■ ...';. ' '•■":■ • This matter^ of unionists* blackleg-; ging upon /unionists, if we ; may use| this somewhat strpns term, is some--thing that hak been hitherto extreme^' ly uncommon m Australia. The; loyalty ,of . the or-ganisatipns' .of laborto each of the organisations m the ranks of the leagued -toilers has been unblemished— unsullied. ; This, however, has not .been the Case" of the United States of America. There, ': what has freqiientiy been denounced by sections of the "Labor Unions; lia& become so common as, scarcely, to ex- ■ cite remark. 'l Widespread strike after widespread strike has— when ' just on: .the j?.p.ipt_ oL s^cofi^§ ii .^ajjna|MiaY—^ppK. lapsed, owing' to the "condubi; of Some * union^ that appeared to have the key', to the 'situation,, refusing to go out on strike with the other unions.' This has several times occurred m the case .of some of the wealthy and over-respectable unions: Possibly, it is American influence m our own union, or the influence of men whose Labor ideas have been largely acquir- ; ed, or modified, on American soil, that led to the leaders of the Sydney} Seamen's Union taking up the lamentable, erroneous position that they decided to adopt. *■■ ■■ •• ■ ! '.'i^.-. ■ ■ .- ■ The conduct of the leading members of the union— or Jhose . members who brought about the executive's decision to supply labor /to the deserted Sonoma— is rendered even more unjustifiable by the fact that the men themselves . have a quite different story to tell as to the reasdn they went on strike. They do not deny, it is true, that they very ' strongly resen-ted the employment of the four 1 non-union Hawaiians ; but they make it clear that, m spite of the fact of their having disrated the man who, as their representative, consented" to the employment of the Hawaiian?, they would have looked over this maitter had it not been' for the alleged fact that m Port Japkson, where there is a strong Seamen's Union, and an abundance of union labor, a non-unionist was engaged, and given a preference over three or four union men that applied for the berth. That is what really occasioned . the strike, according to the men. -It is true that the other side gave an emphatic contradiction to this statement ; but the working men anpear to us to be just as deserving of credence, and of consideration m anything that they, may say as to the cause of the trouble, as may be their employers. This is not the position of the .plutocratic press. The plutish, pinchpenny papers pretend to assume that the men are entirely m the wrong, and that what they did was merely an outburst of reckless rascality. • * • . The whole of this Sonoma scandal is most deeply deplorable, because "it makes it clear to us that, despite our progress, and despite thexant of both America and Australasia .about the blessings of liberty, working men may be seized, and, for . refusing to work: punished with all the severity meted out to the miserable serfs of mediaeval times.