The Editorial Mill

MAY DAY, this is May Day, the By-gone jubilation of our forefathers for the reconquering by the bright sunshine of the bitter Northern winter, the new born celebration of the passing of the worker’s winter of discontent. In Germany, in Austria, in Belgium, in France, all through Europe, in the United Kingdom and in the great English speaking republic across the Pacific, millions of workers are gathering at this hour to voice the demands of Labour for fair conditions of labouring. Never in all history was there such an awakening. Never before have men of the kindred white nations joined so solidly in asserting the duties of governments and the rights of man. Never was the world so near to better things as at this time when the murmurs of organised millions come like rumbling thunder to the ears of trembling rulers. What will be the doings in the near future none can tell. If this May day passes quietly it may still be that Revolution will soon rear its giant strength in Europe, toppling thrones and laying crowns level with the dust.

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And all this agitation is for so very little when it might well be for so much. In the past 90 years the productive force of Labour has increased twenty fold and still Labour is enslaved toiling from dawn till dark for barely enough to live and not always able to live. Our European and American brethren only ask for Eight-Hours and a living wage. They would be satisfied for a time if they could only have what many workers have in Australia; and most of the better-to-do would grant them in these modest demands if the better-to-do only knew how. For everybody is thoroughly well aware that the world stands on the verge of a volcano and most admit freely that the multitude clamour only for what is just and right. The difficulty is that the ruling class will not see that the state alone can interfere if it will prevent the overthrow of civilisation. An employer in Germany, in England, in America, as in Australia, may be really desirous of making better terms with his employees but he himself is competing desperately with other employers and usually dares not be humane for fear of going himself to the wall. The state must stop this brutal competition between employers, must put down its foot and make the Statute Day, which, at a stroke, would do all that our European and American brethren at this moment ask. And if the state will do this; if by chicanery and jerrymandering and black-listing and wire-pulling, the well –to-do classes keep the reins of government and will not use them wisely; then the State and the well-to-do can blame nobody but themselves if the end is Ruin. At any rate, Europe is ripe for Revolution and the end is not yet.

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But though Europe is ripe for Revolution is she ripe for true industrial reform? If the leaders of the labour movement were able, lifted on the shoulders of a crowd, to seize the helm of state is it so likely that they could hold it? Is there yet in the crowd self-reliance enough to render true industrial democracy possible? Is not the hope in the rising of a better Napoleon, in the elevation of a Leader with the brain of Jay Gould and the heart of a Christ?

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A true Leader is only the incarnation of the spirit of his time, is the manifestation of thought in the past and will in the present. He can only come from the burning, throbbing heart of a people, frenzied with a grand ideal, bursting with an aspiration and energy that has been accumulating through long generations. He is the child of the centuries, the climax of all that has gone before, the voice of the storm which rises in the hearts and brains of men. He is always from the people and for them and with them and by them. He moulds men into the shape they seek as the potter moulds the clay softened for his working. He always comes when the world waits him surely the world waits him now.

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The organisation of Queensland into Labour Federation districts is now started in a good earnest and should receive the active support of all friends of the labour movement. The installation of a provisional General Council of the A.L.F gives a keystone to the Federation arch which, within three months, is to be made permanent by delegates from every District Council then established throughout the country. This General Council should be understood so that no union may be disposed against Federation by misconception of its power. It has no authority to interfere either with the working of any individual union or with any local ‘council’. It is simply the bond that unites all the local councils together, just as the local councils are simply the bonds that unite the individual unions together. In its hands are gathered the threads of the organisation of labour; its duty is to promote harmony, to secure voluntary unity of action, to prevent hasty conduct by one council which will unnecessarily involve another council and generally to act as the pivot upon which the general labour movement turns. Its funds are limited to the penny per month per member paid it by the district councils and from this it will have all it can do to pay its general secretary –whose services will be devoted to the entire Federation- and to otherwise meet necessary expenses. It will be powerful only so far as it wins by wisdom the trust and esteem of the local councils and individual unions, for without them is has no power at all. Every union in Queensland can safely join the Federation, retaining perfect self-control; and should.

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The New South Wales Government has refused to admit that it owed a duty to Labour by finding work for the unemployed. It did not shuffle out of its duty when Bourke was attacked by the floods and millions in money-value threatened with annihilation. It stood to Bourke from the word go- and very rightly. It sent armies of navvies and railwayed everybody free and opened the public purse without a murmur. It certainly wasn’t the fault of Bruce Smith and Co. that the Bourke dam went down and the WORKER would be the last to blame them for their most worthy efforts to save it. Only, why should governments be so ready to protect Capitalism and so unready to protect Labour? Why can the homes of thousands of workers be swept away by unemployment without the State making a move, while the very moment the banks and stores and dwellings of the monied class are endangered it is rushed to the rescue at once? The answer is very clear. The monied classes take very good care to own the government, to send in their own men as legislators and to have none but their own men in the cabinet; when the floods rise and the winds blow they get their reward. The workers haven’t as much sense but vote at election times for any smooth-tongued politician who flatters them and vote for him over and over again after he has betrayed them. They get their reward also. One is tempted to say that they deserve it.