The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1913. THE LABOR BILL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 35, 11 October 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1913. THE LABOR BILL.

"Red Federationists, by inarticulate roaring, mere sound and fury, are [hoping to scare the Government into either dropping the new Labor Bill or allowing it to be hacked into unrecognisable shape.” But, says the Wellington Post, the Bill was notdrafted to please the Reds, who have openly professed a contempt of arbitrationism. Their object is a Socialist “solidarity” strong enough to use threats of a general strike in an atJ tempt to compel compliance with the, demands of any section of the “revo-j lutionary” organisation. Til's body' seems to be much more interested in' the •‘light to strike” than in the right to work, on fair terms in relation to the individual and the whole comma-1 nity. The ultra-Socialists have a vision of a sort of Red .Millennium, in which there will bo no so-called ‘'master class.” Their means to that unachievable ideal is a Labor-Socialist Trust, above the public and above Parliament—and they have nothing but scorn for obstacles. hence the unions affiliated to the Federation are! shouting “Serfdom,” “Tsardom,” and! similar nonsense. One, the Auckland! Waterside Workers’ Onion, has some comic rhetoric, thus“ This is an attempt to revert to the coercive methods in vogue against the workers in me-i dieval times and under the Roman > Empire.” This language sounds like: an echo of the Maorilaml Worker, the Reds’ official organ, by which the Bill is abhorred, of course. Condemnation must he expected from extreme Socialists and Syndicalists, These

critics are making themselves ridiculous hy the luridness of their iulminaLious. The Auckland watersiders (Rod Federationists), for example, say that ‘‘the Bill is the most harsh and reactionary measure devised in an\ civilised country outside Russia lor many years.” Such vehemence defeats itself; it is manifestly more verbiage, which cannot deceive anyoody.