The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1913.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3979, 9 July 1913, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1913.

It must have been very gratifying, to

all ulio are anxious to witness greater industrial progress in this country to note that by a two to one majority the Unity Congress declined to adopt the

A Heavy Blow at I.W.W.’ism in New Zealand.

I.W.W. preamble 's which had previously been adopted by the Federation of Labor. As is well-known, the remarkable statement of industrial faith under consideration starts off by insisting that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common ! What is claimed, therefore, is that the great ambition of every worker, or rather of all workers, should' be to so direct their efforts that capitalism may be overthrown. In this connection it is put to the workers in the famous preamble that between the two classes (the working class and the employing class) “a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organise as a class, take possession of tlm earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system.” With the object, then, of bringing about the overthrow of the employing class the rejected preamble of the Industrial Workers- of the World urges workers to band together, not in the form of trades unions as at present, but in such a way “that all the members in any one industry could, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lock-out is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to .one an injury to all,” etc., etc. The danger about the trades unions of the present day—according to the apostles of I.W.W.’ism—it is further pointed out in their preamble is that they foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars. Now as we have already remarked the great majority of the people of this Dominion will have been glad to learn that the official representatives of Labor to the number of about 400 were by such a large majority unwilling to allow such wicked proposals to form part of any preamble in connection with the new Labor party which it has been decided to establish in this country. For our own part we do not see that the “scheme” would be at all feasible, but that is not the aspect of the matter which we propose to discuss upon the present occasion. In this regard Mr McLaren, ex-M.P. for Wellington East, hit the nail right on the head, we think, when he declared that all he could say about the preamble it had been suggested should be adopted was “that it was a ‘damnable preamble/ and designed by revolutionaries and could not be defended on moral grounds.” How downright wicked is the I.W.W. preamble may be gauged by the fact that its authors have been careful not to include in it what additional active and passive" means they feel it would be necessary to adopt in order to help them to obtain their great end. The vote at the Unity Congress shows, it is pleasing to chronicle, that it would be impossible to get a sufficient number of the workers of this Dominion to so combine and act that Labor, if it so desired, would be able to capture property as a whole by force alone. In other words, the verdict also made it plain that the sense of what is right and wrong is, happily, not dying out in the case of the great majority of the workers of this Dominion. To many people this, indeed, will probably be the most satisfactory decision that will he come to at the conference. Now in this regard we venture to say that had all the delegates at the Unity Congress fully understood what is contemplated shall take place if the workers could he persuaded to adopt the I.W .W. creed the proposal that the preamble should be adopted would, we feel sure, have been rejected by even a far larger majority. In his pamphlet “Why Strikes are Lost: How to Min!” Mr W. E. Troutmann, a prominent I.W."VY. disciple, states, it may he mentioned, “that when the workers are fully organised they would use all means that may be at their command in their battle for control.” “Strikes, irritation strikes, passive resistance strikes, boycotts, sabotage, political action, and general strikes in industrial plants will,” he further declares, “all he means applied with precision and changed whenever conditions so dictate.” It is then not surprising, we think, that such a prominent worker in the interests of Labor in this country should have referred to the rejected I.W.W. preamble in the outspoken language which he is reported to have used.