"LIKE A PARASITE."

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 16775, 16 October 1916, Page 7

"LIKE A PARASITE."

SYDNEY, October 3

Fastened like a parasite to the Labour organisation, contaminating everything it touches, injecting its virulent poison into the ranks of industry, battening on the thing it seeks ultimately to destroy, the i.W.AV. hae been for some time quite the most dangerous and sinister influence in Australia. In season and out, its members have preached their vicious doctrine —namelyj-the ruin of employers and the destruction of property, so that all ownership shall eventually come into the hands of the workers. Foolish and mischievous as ie this creed, it yet attracts the more ignorant and unmoral of working men, and the I.W.W. hae attained truly I alarming proportions in Australia. Because the I.W.W. men, in many cases, have been numerously included in the more violent section of the Labour Party, the Labour Governments, ap* parently, have been unwilling to act. But the I.W.W. brand of sabotage— the sneaking, exasperating policy oi secretly ruining machinery, damaging machinery, "slowing down on the job" —has been discerned of late too often for comfort, arid public alarm has forced the hand of the authorities. Several I.W.W. men, charged with using violent language at publir*. meetings, have been heavily fined, and within the laet few days eight I.W.W. leaders have been arrested on charges of treason. t It is apparently intended at last to keep the I.W.W. men under close supervision, and the Labour Party, which was beginning to carry the burden of the evil reputation won by the 1.W.W., should be the first to applaud.