London, Dec. 17.
The great Labour Campaign in favour of the nationalization of the mines commences just after Christmas. Every Labour member of Parliament will have to take part in it, and already meetings are fixed up in tke chief towns.
'The "coming struggle" with Labour—the attempt by organized and federated manual labour to hold up the rest of the community in order to compel compliance with their demands—must be faced. There was a Trades' Union Congress last week. We are told it was attended by 750 delegates who represented 5,000,000 workmen. I doubt whether "'represented" is the proper word. Mr. Havelock Wilson, who knows as much about Lebour in this country as man, when he read that said, tell that to the Marines.
Anyhow, that was the claim put for-it animously resolve?
Why this, that until February when Parliament meets in its new Session, the Miners' Federation and those associated with it in ell the industrial centres of the country would conduct a raging, tearing campaign alization of the m Tow M. vist.
When the 750 delegates had passed this resolution Mr. Tom Mann appeared on the platform. He is now the Secretary of the algamated Society of Engineers—one of the most powerful most extreme sections of the Federation.
He is worthy of a moment's consideration. Di the he was merely a labour agitator; attached to no trade union, working @pparently without fee or reward so far as I know, yet in many towns, at dock gates, at railway yards, in public squares, in this country he was every day preaching the doctrines of Bolshevism. He then declared himself a Bolshevist—against the war—urged the men to—to produce conditions that would put an end to the war under which we were then fighting not only against the greatest military aggression known to history, but for our lives and our country.
And to-day peace having been signed, the Allies having won the war, having imposed conditions on the enemy humane" and mild in comparison with those we, had we been the losers in the fight, would have had to suffer, you find Mr. Mann in full official regalia, one of the most important figures in the Federation of the Trade Unions, still preaching Bolshevism, still talking of the word revolution.
When Mr. Mann appeared on the platform, he said:—"Tt is not the mines alone that stand in need of control—not' transport alone. Each and ell of the industries in turn will be coming up with their little lot until Socialism shall be effectively applied.
We Are TRE Power, He went on:
"We want less and less of centralized Government and more and more of rank and file control expressed through their properly appointed committees. If this should follow on the other demand (nationalization of mines) it will give a real stimulus to other efforts. Inside three or four months from now. you will be called together again to learn what has taken place, and you will have to con. sider what to do." We ought to make preparation for action now to exhibit the most perfect solidarity, and to be prepared to apply the greatest power we are able to exert Those are the sentiments of the wild revolutionists. Were they received with dismay, or with doubtful acquiescence? Did the delegates sit silent and anxious under the fiery eloquence of the Bolshevik firebrand? Not a bit of it. They acclaimed him with fervour, with enthusiasm.
And if you want further proof of what Mr. Mann's appearance at the Congress forebodes. remember his sentence which I have guoted "we want less and less of centralize ed Government and more and more of rank and file control expressed throuch them properly appointed committees," and then remember that in the current issue of "Soli-dari the organ of the Shop Stewards and Workers Committee, we are informed that workers, once organized, suffice in ourssives. We have no need either of of Parliament, nor of protect'
of the paternalism of th hour: Labour is everything.
we are the future."
Tue Mropte CLass Moves.
What is going to happen in February or Murch—not, remember, very far away. There will be another Congress. That is the intention of the people of this country; of those unorganized citizens who stand between the organized and federated manual worker the one hand and the small but almost equally powerful class organized and consolidated finanders on the other. If the plain people get together, if they combine and organize as they can do, if they join up in their own defence determined to cooperate with the lawful authorities, a cooperation which should always be forthcoming in days of community peril, then we can prove as was troved in the recent railway strike, as was proved in Winnipeg this year, that the people as a whole bre organized and determined, are greater and more powerful than even the most thoroughly-organized minority.
And some of the labour leaders are beginning to recognize that. There was a very remarkable passage in a speech made by Mr. J. H. Thomas at Cardiff on Saturday. He was addressing a mecting at a new Labour Party Hall. He was boasting that the Labour Party was destined to govern. And at the moment when his vision of the future of Labour was at its highest, there seems to have
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.