The New Zealand THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1913. THE GOSPEL OF VIOLENCE

New Zealand Tablet, 30 October 1913, Page 33

The New Zealand THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1913. THE GOSPEL OF VIOLENCE

fATHOLICS throughout the world will appreciate and admire the action of the Dublin priests and Dublin mothers in refusing to allow hapless Catholic children to be drafted off to the atheistic homes of English Socialists, and in taking forcible steps, where necessary, to prevent any such scheme from being given effect to. The danger feared by the priests is an. absolutely real one and they would have been doing less than their duty if they had failed to strain every nerve to prevent young children, towards whom they stand in a position of spiritual responsibility, from being subjected to such a risk. • Larkins himself, the leader of the Dublin strike, is not an Irishman, but an English Socialist imported from Liverpool. He is a leader of the Mann-Tillett school — is, he is an exponent and advocate of industrial unionism, the general strike, and revolutionary Socialism. What industrial unionism stands for may be gathered from a recent article quoted in a New Zealand working class paper from the Melbourne Socialist. We cite one or two characteristic sentences: ' Because modern and up-thrown of economic evolution, Industrial Unionism is scientific in its obedience to law, and quite naturally the grandest revolutionary sign and medium of our times. For evolution, to be true to itself, must spit forth revolution as...the volcano its lava. Revolution is ripened evolution. Complete change is its simplest expression. Seeking a complete change in the economic structure of societyimpelled thuswards by evolution's "decreelndustrial Unionism is unassailably sign and medium of revolution, Social Revolution. So, in the working-class movement Industrial Unionism is the supreme revolutionary force.' What is likely to be the future of Catholic children brought up in homes whose daily atmosphere and environment are saturated by this sort of teaching ?

; It will probably be news to most of our readers to be told that there is already in New Zealand a paper wholly and solely devoted to the advocacy of such views. We have before us a copy of the Industrial Unionist, 'A Monthly Advocate of Direct Action,' founded some six months ago in Auckland; and its columns are studded with even more vigorous expressions of precisely the same sentiments as those which it quotes from the Melbourne Socialist. Through and through, in'every page, in every column, almost in every sentence, it advocates I.W.W.ism and sabotage. We give a few sample utterances':.' , ' If the average worker clearly understood (1) the truth and meaning of the I.W.W. Preamble, and (2) that might is right, the wage system would last about as long as a fluttering fowl with its head chopped off.' 'Sabotage does not mean simply going slow on the job; it can be made drastic in different degreesadjusted to meet the degrees of stubbornness shown by the employers, just as we use black letters or capitals .in writing to emphasise a word or sentence.' ' When "wear your wooden shoe" philosophy (i.e., sabotage) becomes widely understood and warily practised by wage-plugs, it will widen out into something more than philosophy into a powerful weapon for whipping the Boss.' Under the heading ' Sabotage,' the following is quoted, in heavy type and large capitals, from Arturo M. Giovannitti: ' There can be no injunction against it. No policeman's club. No rifle diet. No prison bars. It cannot be starved into submission. It cannot be blacklisted. It is present everywhere and everywhere invisible, Jike the . airship that soars high above the clouds in the dead of night, beyond the reach of the cannon and the searchlight, and drops the deadliest bombs into the enemy's own encampment. Sabotage is the most formidable weapon of economic warfare, which will eventually open to the workers the greatiron gate of capitalist exploitation, and lead them out of the house of bondage into the free . land of the future.' And the whole trend and spirit of the paper is well indicated in the following footnote appended by the editor to a letter from a correspondent who writes with reference to provision for . ' calling off' a strike: ' We are not really much concerned about getting strikes called off; the problem for N.Z. rebels seems to be how to get a decent strike on.' * The precise meaning of the ' sabotage' thus talked of has been more than once explained in articles in our columns. It means the obstruction of the regular course of transport or production and the deliberate and systematic destruction of property by those who are entrusted with its care. It may range from a trifling injury to goods or machinery up to the wrecking of a train. In the French railway strike of 1910-11 perishable goods were sent to the wrong destination. Heavy boxes were placed on crates marked ' Handle with care.' Not a day passes,' said the New York Tribune of that period, 'but that a dozen acts of destruction are reported on the,railways. Rails are torn up; blocks of stones or sleepers are put on the tracks; signal boxes are damaged; telegraph lines are entangled or cut; attempts are made by means of secret emissaries of the Labor Federation, and by the anti-militarist propaganda, controlled by the Federation, to seduce the soldiers from their allegiance, and to make common cause with the strikers. According to official statistics no less than three thousand attempts have been made since October to wreck trains;' and there is good ground for the opinion that the official estimate was a thousand or more below the real figure. Already an emissary of the I.W.W. is on the scene in Wellington urging the adoption of similar tactics. He advocated I.W.W. methods,' says the Dunedin Star's correspondent, 'and pointed out how the waterside workers could annoy by quietly dropping cases overboard from slings, and suchlike methods.' There can be no question that the 1.W.W., with its gospel of syndicalism, ' direct action,' and the destruction of property, is fostering a very ugly spirit in its followers. The same may be said, in a lesser degree, of such organisations as the N.Z. United Federation of Labor. In America

during the last year or two the strikes engineered by the I.W.W. have been accompanied, by extreme violence and much bloodshed. ; A recent notable example was a riot, in the hop fields of California over a question of wages, which resulted in the death of the district attorney, a deputy, sheriff, and two hop pickers. The coroner's jury which investigated .the' killing of the four men found that the rioters were incited to anger by I.W.W. leaders and agitators.' We have every sympathy with the just and reasonable desire of working men to better their conditions.; but for men who wish to keep their record clean and to observe tha golden rule of doing as they would be done by, such associations, controlled by hot-heads and revolutionaries, are excellent organisations to keep out of.