The Sun SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1914. THE STRIKE MANIA.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 115, 20 June 1914, Page 8

The Sun SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1914. THE STRIKE MANIA.

Offended because the Federal Arbitration Court ordered the cancellation, of its agreement oh the ground that its rules "did not. comply with a .certain schedule of tlie Act, the Federated Mining Employees' Association of Australia decided to declare a - general strike if registration were not made secure immediately. It is astonishing how, after so many bitter lessons, these direct actionists seize the strike weapon to enforce their demands. They are dullard pupils in the school of industrialism. Time has proved the fallacy of the general or special strike over hnd over again, but these fellows who would be seriously offended if told they were hopelessly out-of : date, persist in the old fatuous idea. Sorel, one "of the three '' intellectuals" responsible 'f6r the introduction of s Syndicaiisin : .in.France, has in his later years come to see the" futility, of direct action. - ''Syndicalism is not what I thought it was," laments Sorel, and this in face of the fact that-there are over 300,000 Syndicalists in France at the present time; In - Germany,- where «■ sane and intelligent Socialism has gone with great success far beyond the principles laid down by that clever Jew, Karl Marx, arid his co-thinkers, Engels and Lasalles, the idea of direct action has long since been jettisoned, and the German Social-Democratic Party, led by even more logical "intellectuals" than Sorel was or ever will be, has made wonderful strides in organising its political forces. While the Socialism of this part of the world still quotes Marx s.s the master, crying out every day for a prosecution of-the eternal class war, the Socialism of the Continent—including Britain—avoids intensifying the antagonism betwen the proletariat and! the bourgeoisie. The hope of these philosophic Socialists is that in time the capitalist class will be brought to recognise the social inequalities that are the cause of so much industrial unrest, j i»,nd, so convinced, will co-operate with hue Socialism in the readjustment of | these inequalities. The chief lack of tlie industrial revolutionaries this side of-the Atlautic is brains and a complete ignorance of the advanced movement in Kurope. Hence the strike slogan raised at the instigation of the "con-! fcious minority" (blessed phrase!)—! say, Hie key, Semple, and Co. j