THE FEDERATION OF LABORAND ITS ANTICS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3699, 7 December 1912, Page 7

THE FEDERATION OF LABOR—AND ITS ANTICS.

(TO THE EDITOR.) Sir, —The great majority of workers in this town must have been surprised on reading that the Federation of Labor lias circularised all trades unions in New Zealand to send a delegate to Wellington to agree upon a basis of combined action to strengthen the great cause of Labor. This proposal, coming from such a source, is a direct insult to those workers who have had the manliness to stand aloof from an organisation that was dragging the worker from the ladder .he had ascended after many weary years’ agitation. The insults heaped upon the United Labor Party by the Federation of Labor and the journal published in its interests must make it impossible that any compromise can he effected between the two bodies. It must be plain te even the meanest comprehension that the aim of the beaten crew is to coquette with the United Labor Party and endeavor to secure control of the Labor movement, and thereby gain their ends. The Auckland Labor Unions are very wary about this latest move of their enemy, but not so the Gisborne Drivers’ Union, who tumbled into the trap straight away, and decided to send a delegate to bolster up a crowd who reckon tlie innocent workers don’t know are beaten.

Much coquetting with the Federation of Labor has been indulged in by some of,the Gisborne Unions —in fact, two of the strongest have seceded from the Trades and Labor Council, .and, until the debacle occurred, were upon the point of joining the Federation of Labor. What shall be the next? “ARBITRATIONIST.”