The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1916. THE POISONOUS ELEMENT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 16824, 29 November 1916, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1916. THE POISONOUS ELEMENT.

I deplore the fact that a- poisono js element has got into Australian unionism; but by God's help and that of the people of this country, we will drive it out of it. . . Men without principle, without religion, without honour, without a country. . . ."

In these words, in one of his pre-refer-©ndum speeches, the Hon. William Hughes, Prime Minister of Austraiia, referred to the pernicious influence i.f the I.W.W. Mr Hughes is essentially j a Labour man. It is because of his long, consistent and able advocacy a' the cause of the workers of Australia that h© is to-day the political head of the Commonwealth. His hope, so far | as the referendum ballot is concerned, was doomed to disappointment, far the result was a victory for anarchism i and Kaiserism, which were the mos« active elements on the aaiti-eonscrip-tionists' side. At the same time we believe Mr Erio Oscar Balfe, the Editor of the Launoeston "Courier," is ngm> when he says that the average Australian regards the anarchist with horror. Mr Balfe himself, though an ardent "Home Ruler," is entirely at one with the Prime Minister in his wholehearted denunciation of the I.W.W. The Industrial Workers of the World, he declares, are anarchists of the most pronounced type. 'In the course of a scathing resume of their history, he reminds us that in the United States members of this sinister organisation liave been responsible for many hornoie outrages, aaid some years since in France their propaganda it was that turned workmen temporarily into fiends, killing, burning, and destroying in their madness. Since the last grave outburst of sabotage in France, the Industrial Workers of the World, under various guises, have extended their operations to Great Britain and Australia. If the truth were known, most of the outrages that have occurred in Britain since the war began —the blowing up of munition factories, war-ves-sels, etc. —would be credited to agents of the Industrial Workers of the World, the majority of whom, doubtle3S were in the pay of the enemy. Ger-man-Americans are a wealthy class, and since war began have been spending money lavishly in efforts to foment trouble in the United States, Great Britain and Ireland, and now Australia is apparently receiving their special &&-

tention. Mr Balte declares that for

some time past "men who are presumed to be in the pay of German-Ameri-cans have been coming quietly into Australia. Some of these enemy agents are militant disciples of the gospel of terror; others, who are even more dangerous, mix with workers, and oy means of glib argument and the dissemination of pernicious literature poison, their minds against honest labour, against decent government, and against the British Empire. The militant agent is often to be found sc. Sydney Domain, the Yarra Bank, and other places where people are in tho habit of congregating, openly preaching sedition and the doctrines of force and destruction. The militants, when they and their co-workers have disseminated the poison of anarchism to what they deem an appreciable extent, start r» campaign of terrorism. Citizens are shot—one case of deliberate murder has already been traced to the Industrial Workers of the World in NewSouth Wales—warehouses destroyed by lire, and occasionally bombs are throwu at public gatherings. That hundreds

of workers may lose their lives through the carrying out of a crusade of terrorism is a matter which calls for no consideration from the emissaries of murder and wholesale destruction. A city of the size of Sydney may be wantonly destroyed; thousands of men, women and children may die in the

names; still, if the hirelings of our Austro-German enemies in the United States receive substantial p)ay for bringing about the holocaust, that is the one aspect of the question which concerns them. The agents of the selfstyled Industrial Workers of the World are seldom men who toil. For the greater part they are either callous adventurers or weak-minded, dupes, who have never followed a useful occupation. Spreading the Satanic doctrine of murder and destruction is their chosen occupation, and the unthinking type of worker is the tool they seiecs to carry out the most dangerous part of their mission. The fact that the recent New South VVales campaign of crime was Erected by Germane and Austrian leaders has been proved.