The Daily News FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1930. MILITANT LABOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1930, Page 6

The Daily News FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1930. MILITANT LABOUR.

No surprise should be felt at the contents of the recent manifesto that is reported from Sydney to have been issued by the vigilance committee of the Seamen’s Union as part of its campaign against arbitration and those union leaders who favour the settlement of disputes through the Arbitration Court. What that union expects to obtain by adopting a process of intensive and independent guerilla warfare against the employers is impossible to conjecture, but it would seem that the seamen are at present dominated by the lust of battle against the forces of conciliation and peace, and are all out to become top dog without counting the cost. Ostensibly their chief aim is to obtain increased wages and shorter hours, but if they delude themselves into the belief that the adoption of cave-men tactics will scare the employers into complying with their demands they will be grievously disenlightened. The scheme the vigilance committee has evolved to bend the employers to the will of the seamen is a model of simplicity. When a strike is called there must immediately be selected “on every ship” a rank and file strike committee representing all sections of workers on board, and these committees are charged with the duty of carrying on the struggle as it concerns each ship. At the same time delegates from each strike committee are to- be elected to a central rank and file committee, the duty of which is’ to conduct the struggle nationally, and this committee alone will have power to effect a settlement when instructed by a mass meeting of the rank and file. Reading between the lines of this bombastic manifesto there can be no misconception as to its militancy, or its revolutionary character. The mere fact that it denounces what is termed the “bosses’ court” and “union rules that stand in the way of organising for the struggle” affords an ample insight into the intentions of the authors of this latest appeal to brute force instead of to reason. If this revolutionary scheme is to be taken as a model by other trade unions,' then it would seem the day is not far distant when the world must witness the greatest struggle in history. Carried to its logical conclusion, the result of holding up all ocean transport would reduce the producing countries of the world to the position of mere self-contain-ed\ communities living upon one another. It would deprive the consuming countries of their supplies of food and raw materials, and there would be no employment for Labour, because there would be no markets for commodities. It does not seem to have occurred to the seamen in Australia who have hatched this scheme that its rcpercussive action would be fatal to their existence, and that when their union funds were exhausted they would be cut off from supplies. Neither does it seem to have reached their comprehension that if they engage in a world-wide offensive it will only be natural for their intended victims to meet force with force. Again and again it has been convincingly proved that disputes of every kind must be eventually settled, if only because they are injurious to the workers generally, and that is largely the reason why measures for conciliation and arbitration have been instituted in the interests of all classes. Action such as that set forth in the seamen’s manifesto is well calculated to lead to the abolition of unions as- a danger to the State, and that would certainly be harmful to the workers at large- Already there is evidence of divided opinions between the central controlling, authorities of Labour, while indications are not lacking of the growth of moderate and more rational views. It may be that seamen fear* the spread of toleration so much that they have adopted a scheme of militancy to counteract it. The struggle they appear to desire could only end in one way—the ignominious defeat of revolutionary tactics.