SABOTAGE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 21, 8 January 1912, Page 8

SABOTAGE.

A NEW REIGN OF TERROR IN FRANCE. WHERE WILL IT END? Sabotage, that word of evil omen to law-abiding people, is likely to be discussed with grave apprehension in France during tnc immediate future. It is part and parcel of the new movement known as Syndicalism which is being exploited in industrial circles by agitators of, a revolutionary type. . •Sabotage rose to its present glory a year ago when the railroad, men of France were trying to enforce, certain demands before the big strike was declared. Sabotage was then a highly systematised, very scientific means of retaliation against the companies, they could easily squeeze through the finest meshes of any legal met.;. ' ; , , , The Fino Art of Sabotage.; Sabotage was not lawbreqking: It consisted merely, in -tl^', strict‘ discharge of every employee s, duty—the thorough fulfilment of every order; the stubborn obedience to every rule and regulation, with the most stupid, though unpunishable, disregard for every emergency. For strict obedience to orders on the part of an individual devoid of intelligence and initiative is bound to bring about dicStation bands would work faithfully until the precise minute when they were supposed to dqnye^plf,' and"tiffin allow' a freight .car they had. been moving to crash ,at tlip bqtfoui^f‘an incline or, to block the path ‘6f incoming trains. Repair -gangs-would keep, on 'repairing the 1 trackin front of a limited express, delaying,, it,, for an , hour and disorganising, the ' schedule of every station or else let it pass over a stretch of unfastened rails, and consequently sink it in the road-bod-. j Foremen and inspectors were driven almost to insanity by such .an attitude on the part of the men. “I did hot know. Nobody told me,” were tne usual explanations given for. every mishap, and the company would then lose every damage suit, for it could generally he proved that the men had either carried out with absurd literalness a formal order, or had received no formal order, lor instance, to remove an obstruction likely to cause a wreck. This was the original, the scientific extra legal sabotage, it annoyed the companies, but did not frighten them into accepting tfie men’s terms. The men then uuitted. work.

A Grim Reality. When the strike proved to bo a complete failure, partly on account of the interference of the Governments, which manned stations and trains with military crews, the cheminaux, las, railroad men are commonly called in France, adopted more direct tactics of retaliation. On the morrow of the settlement things began to happen. They have,, been happening so Irequently ever,, since that the French papers devote, every day a column to sabotage news. The French Premier declared last, month that, from October, 1910 to, July, 1911, over 2500 cases of sabo-i, tage had been reported by the various railroad companies. 1 ' ; , v cj Every morning the sabotage column, announces that green and red signals were interchanged on a certain line, the iron girders were found chained to the rails, that bolts were removed on a portion of track, etc. Very seldom are the perpetrators of those misdeeds discovered and arrested. Mo railroad man is likely to ,yive information leading to the arrest of bis fellow workers. By keeping up this reign of terrorism the employees expect to wrench from the companies the concessions which were refused to them before the strike that failed. “Direct action” is what they; all,, preach now. Direct action is another literary synonym for sabotage. The Liberte Disaster. •' And now the question arises, sinister, as to whether it was not an act of sabotage that despatched into the great beyond some three hundred officers and men, the crew of the man-of-war Liberte. The Mediterranean - ports, Marseilles and Toulon, arc hotbeds of radicalism. Not so long ago .the Mediterranean sea trade was disturbed by the strike of the Marseilles dockers, Severals times in the course of the last five years the shipyards of the two cities have been sot on fire. The number of punishments inflicted for sabotage of arms and uniforms in the regiments garrisoned in southern ports and in manufacturing Uistricts has increased in alarming proportions. The number of “accidents” reported during the last Army and Navy manoeuvres would, if they were mere accidents, disqualify French soldiers and sailors for any active I service in time of war. I “Spontaneous combustion” is a I good omnibus explanation for much I

mischief done on board vessels. It may be that the terrible tragedy which destroyed one of France’s units was more than some saboteur had planned for. A small lire, intended to scare the oflicers, was perhaps all the damage which some radical wished to inflict on the Libertc.