PATER'S COATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3214, 20 October 1915, Page 75

PATER'S COATS WITH THE BOYS.

“OUR MESSAGE TO THE MINERS.” Have you heard of the publication, “John Bull*’? The editor is Horatio Bottomley, and he uses a trenchant pen. In a recent issue he has an article headed “ Our Message to the Miners,” and from it I make an extract: “At the time of writing—Saturday morning July 17 — 200,000 Welsh coal miners are out on strike—on stp.ieb, whilst the fate of the British Empire is swaying in the balance; ON strike, whilst the forges and furnaces are belching out their shot and shell and crying aloud with tongues of fire for fuel, and more fuel—that our country may be saved.” He then goes on to say that he declines to consider what the row is about and who is at fault; but further on in the issue he gives a full-paged drawing with coalpits in tho bakground, a sour-looking stout man of the John Bull type, but representing a mine-owner, carrying in his arms two large well-filled bags labelled “ Coal profits,” and glancing furtively at the true John Bull in the foreground, who is saying to a miner: “I know the rapacity of your employers, and suffer from it like yourself. But you and I will stop their little game later on. Meanwhile, go back to the pit, my lad, and play the big game, for comrades. King, and country.” So, though the editor says he will not consider for a moment what is the cause of the war, we know his opinion, and can understand him when he continues: “Eor aught we know, the men may have sore grievances against their employers; probably they have. We believe that many of the mine-owners, like many of the ship-owners, have been exploiting the war to line their filthy pockets with the bloodstained money of the people, and we hope their souls may writhe in hell for their villainy. But that has nothing to do with the fact that 200,000 to-day are endangering the safety of the State —defying the Government, laughing at their own leaders, and outraging the conscience of the nation. They decline to submit their case to the arbitration of a State tribunal —and they decline to work. And Ministers of the Crown look helplessly on—• AND A MILLION TRAINED SOLDIERS ABE standing idly by ! In the name of God, wo protest. Are we really powerless? Must we stand still whilst the hellish Huns slay our men, violate our women, butcher our children, and devastate our land—and all because we are too pigeon-livered to compel these strikers to produce the coal without which we should surely perish? Newer shall that be said.” Following this comes what might be called a sermon under the five headings: “To the Politicians,” “To the Miners,” “To the Politicians” again, “To the Government,” and “To the Nation.” All of these are full of truths and welldeserved denunciations. Here are a quotation or two: To the politicians he says: “The people are sick of you and your piffling prattle. For heaven’s sake adjourn, and go on adjourning, and leave the job to Kitchener. You ‘ Conservatives ’ have conserved nothing; and you Radicals have so identified yourselves with the peace-at-any-prico (but their own skin) gang that you have made this bloody war inevitable. Like the three tailors of'Tooley street, you have posed as ‘ tho people of England, and the beery Germans were fools enough to take you at your own valuation, and to imagine that thev might safely work their sweet will upon France, and, after haying crushed her, proceed to annex the British Empire.” The editor then harks back to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s speech in the Abert Hall, December 21, 1905, when he said that “ a policy of huge armaments keeps alive and stimulates and feeds the belief that force is the best, if not the only, solution of international differences,” etc. Of course, no Britisher ever preached such a doctrine, though most of us knew who know history at all, and tho ambitions of the Prussian rulers, that they were determined that all should view every international question from their point of view or be crushed bv brute force. Mr Bottomley tells us that “ the big audience cheered —and wo shuddered, and uttered our warnings—only to be told to ‘wait and seed Our rulers whose ‘ spiritual home was in Germany ’ would guarantee us against German aggression ; and now we see the result. Millions of men slaughtered; France and Belgium invaded ; and methods of warfare resorted to which would have made the warriors of the Middle -Ages shudder with horror. Over 500,000 brave Britons have alreadv been killed or wounded, and others are* being led daily to the slaughter.” I wish Sir Henry CampbellBannerman were alive now to see the result of his pacific disarming policy. Thank God, ho and Lord Haldane were stooped in time. To the miners he says, among other things: “Nobody realises more than we do the tragic heroism of your da : lv lives, burrowing into the very bowels of the earth, with death always hovering over you. Ever and anon Mother Nature revolts against your dominion over her, and spits out fire and fume and blood : and weeping women at the pit’s month mourn for their buried men. God bless and succour vou, and never lei it be said that tout country is lacking iu gratitude or generosity towards you. . . . You want a fair wage—which, in all _ human justice, should include a substantial portion of tho wealth yon win from the depths of darkness. And yon shall have it— l; trc tot' must play the game. Forgive our plain language—-you must not. blackmail us whilst the enemy is at our gates..” To the politicians he is equally plain. He tolls them to stop fooling, to cease passing silly Acts imposing penalties which cannot be enforced, and which arc making the British Parliament the laughing stock of the world. Sir Bottomley’s remedy is

a simple and effective one, and in the present temper of the people and of the soldiers in the trenches could he put into operation. “The miners who refuse to WORK MUST BE CONSCRIPTED, put Under military control and made to work at soldiers’ pay 3 and any of them who remain out must be arrested, treated as deserters, and punished according to martial law. . , , There must be no more tinkering in this business. War is war. We must have a Committee of Public Safety, and every able-bodied man under 40 —first the single and then the married—must be enrolled in military service. The others must bo enrolled for public service of any kind required by the State. Our personal freedom, as individuals, must for the time being bo surrendered. Till after the war we have no rights, except the right to fight the foe; no liberty, except the liberty of defending our dear land.” The sentiments expressed are excellent,' I think, but they do not go far enough. If miners should be put under martial law and made to work for soldiers’ pay—about fifteen pence a day, I think (by the bye, I haven’t heard of miners or any other section striking because soldiers are not paid enough, and strikers Would be the first to howl if the soldiers struck) —I was going to say that if miners and other strikers were to have the drastic military law meted out to them, the Government at the same time should take over all industries making war profits and give the owners what proportionately they give the miners. The owners of industries, taken as a whole, have been better educated, and ought to have a wider outlook than the so-called workers, so, for them to put pocket before patriotism is more reprehensible than it is for the ordinary working class. The section addressed to the Government has a reference to neutral nations, Says the editor: “We are tired of this talk about the feelings of neutral nations. There should not be any such thing as a neutral nation in this world crisis. Nothing should go into Germany. Italy is with us; Rumania and Bulgaria soon will be [the editor is out here, as we now know] and Holland and Switzerland must make dip their minds. Let Sir Edward Grey set his teeth and show the world that at length Britain is awake. No more ‘waiting’ and ‘seeing.’ No more ‘keepung an eye’ on things. No more ‘considering the situation.’ Otherwise the Government must go, and a National Council take its place; presided over not by a lawyer, or a philosopher, or an armchair politician, but under the stern direction of a Man of the World, a Man of Business, a Man of Action—‘ a still, strong man, who can rule and dare not lie.’ ” As is usual when a subject possesses me, I have. gone beyond my space, so must call a halt. But what do you think of Horatio Bottomley’s article, judged by what I have said and quoted? The article applies not only to miners and other strikers, but to all who are not sinking their petty individual selves and putting our Empire and its ideals first.