ENGLAND "ON THE VERGE"
P, ROBERT SMILL1F, M.
ENGLAND "ON THE VERGE" THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE RE FORMING7 LONDON—Conference* seeking to urt*i at a common plan of action m thenr coming wage dispart** Kava beam bald by the executive, of tiv* Bntuh...
...You see the rainbow in the clouds...
...It is a joke ) Or, as out Jewish comrades would I say, "lite ganze welt tut eine grosse Stadt" (the whole world is one big clt\ I Converting the I'ewSlmmtii I never let my prospect get above me, I stay above and ahead and meet his arguments before he get* to them Again he may say...
...The Poles hsve brought their own priests with them, including one or two bishops...
...8 a special conference of the Internaitonal Federation of Trade Unions was held in Amsterdam to discuss the question of the formation of a European Steel Trust and the Franco-German and Belgo-German commercial treaties...
...As for myself, jthere is only1 one thing for which I live That ts the ideal of Socialism...
...Besides the All-India T. U. C. there is the Labor League of India, with soma dozen unions, but this body admits "persons who arc interested in Labor" in sddition to regular unions...
...Getting members is like this: You meet a Comrade...
...I watch his face very closely, also the ton* of his voice...
...You need all the grit, sand, courage, zeal, energy, optimism and determination that you can have...
...A sculptor works for years On a work of art...
...The workers are like dumb, driven cattle...
...This action, in the opinion of the I. C. W. I'., "will widen racial strife between white and black workers...
...Most of the few unions now affiliated with the central body are in Calcutta and Bombay, the movement in the latter presidency having shown considerable [ progress of late...
...I feel sure that if matters ran be amicably arranged so that the mine-workers are assured of a decent wage, prosperity will again come to the coal industry...
...Communist efforts to induce the foreigners to or-gsnize in unions consisting of members of different nationalities have so far met with no success...
...You csn get his number immediately and you know how to approach him...
...You, yourself, grew nine months in the Citadel of Life before you could be born...
...ENGLAND "ON THE VERGE" THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE RE FORMING7 LONDON—Conference* seeking to urt*i at a common plan of action m thenr coming wage dispart** Kava beam bald by the executive, of tiv* Bntuh manor*' federation aad the A incarnated Fllgaiaaiiag Uakoa Mmtn representatives have aiao coofarrad with representative* of the ship busider*' uruon Conference* are to take place an tha near future between the miner*, engineers, locomotive engineers and firemen and transport workers...
...Leipart, Vice-Presidents...
...Don't you know that it is a science and that it will require centuries to realize the ideals of our cause...
...Unfortunately, the lockout of 1921 went a long way in the direction of shsttering the power of the Miners' Federation...
...ORGANIZING for SOCIALISM By S^H...
...It is time we get busy...
...But it is strongly opposed to...
...I wsnt to make the strongest possible appeal that theie sheuid he no tack of cohesion on the part of the mine work ers or then leaders The mine owners ale well organized and well prepared anV struggle that may come, and they will undoubtedly have the support of combined t api talism llecause of this we must rinse the ranks and maintain a united front against the common foe Mere boasting about our pow ei will not assist us in any way, but if Ike rank end fil* of our men stand shoulder to shoulder together and join up end strengthen their or-genisetions, I believe thai this, aa much as anything, will tend to secure e settlement of the present dispute I make this appeal to my fellow workers, because I realize that sen ous division has recently been show ing itself in our ranks...
...Sometimes I call several times before I meet my prospect, hut I get him...
...You live in the possibilities of the present and the glories of the future...
...The French Confederation is therefore demanding the creation of a national office for the regulation of immigration...
...We have everything to encourage us...
...A. J. Cook, of the International Miner*' Federation...
...Over six million votes in Britain, thousands of new voters in France, great gains in Germany, Denmark and Sweden...
...A painter works for months on a beautiful painting...
...To Watch European Steel Trust On Feb...
...Zeal and Courage Win Sometimes I get this reply: "After all these years of labor and sacrifice what have we gained...
...Towns hsve a psychology as each individual has...
...Meet them with the grit and determination of Napoleon, who with sheer personality, courage and determination led hordes of men over the Alps...
...I tell him my name, wnu a ¦ i'i mil, "ii...
...To Inspect Latin America According to a report received from Berlin by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, a commission representing the International Labor Office of ths League of Nations was due to sail from Lisbon on March 19 for Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina and Cuba to investigate conditions in those countries and the possibility of settling some of the Armenian, Russian and Jewish refugeees now stranded in European cities...
...It is a waste of time and patience to talk to him...
...If you are easily discouraged don't try to organize the Socialist Party...
...As he starts to look it over, I open my pen and hand it to him, saying: "Sign your name on that line, please...
...I watch my prospect very closely, and at the psychological moment I hand him an application card...
...The I. F. T. U. was instructed to collect the information necessary to deal with the question\comprchensively and immediately, anil to submit this information to a commission consisting of/representatives of the national centres and trade secretariats concerned...
...And that followed upon the blow to the mining, ateel, engineering, and shipbuilding industries which wss dealt them by the disaster of the Great War...
...As soon as you meet that comrade, war is immediately declared by the generals of each subconscious mind and these generals prepare...
...be the leader...
...Over a million votes in the United States...
...In view of the serious possibilities of the next two month...
...Most of what is written is sheer nonsense...
...We have a Labor president in Mexico...
...Rumanian Port Worker* Win After a ftwe'-day strike the port workers of Braila, Rumania, won n forty per cent wage increase, as from Dec...
...The Commission, which will be empowered to take final de-cisions, will also give special consideration to measures calculated to ward off the dangers to which steel and Iron trustification may expose the standard of living of the work-1 ers...
...Peraonal Canvassing I rsll on each individual personally...
...i nose his case and give the medicine | without his knowing what it is...
...same time and place as the League of Nation's conference, regardless of when or where the latter may be held...
...Everyone must be approached in a different manner...
...I also get a map and work out cross street puzzles until I learn the lay of the place...
...Then a room somewhere and a place for the car, and I go to work...
...Next week we will have, an article on this subject, j If there are young comrades who i are interested in organizing for the ; cause 1 would appreciate it veiy much if they would get in touch with me We could use fifteen or twenty in the State of New York alon...
...tv-ing...
...Except for a few isolsted rases, and for the soldiers of the Wrangel army who are employed at Tours and Tarbes, the wages of the foreign workers are not | as a rule lower than the wages of French nationals...
...28, included acceptance of the financial report for 1924 showing receipts of 184,198 guilders tat 40 cents apiece), expenditures of 192,14fiand a substantial balance in the treasury...
...Of the 3,000 men on strike 2,500 belonged to the union affiliated with the International Transport Workers...
...Unions Gaining in India Material gains in organizstion are expected to be reported by the delegates to the All-India Trade Union Congress, scheduled to be held in i Parel, Bombay, the latter part of this month...
...5-7, decided to %k affiliated organizations and sympathizers to try to make their celebration of May LABOR Jottings from ABROAD...
...Now if your optimism is stronger than his pessimism, you have won him...
...AdvttbsTM of a Former Mmirim af tt.a Gmpd, Naw aa Organiser far tha Naw Yark Saciafisb—Has Stfuad Up m Naw Members it Last Sis MaatW-FW» Appeal b lrreawtiblc...
...May Day Aa Anti-War Day* The General Council of the International Federation of Trade Unions, at its Amsterdam, meeting of Feb...
...Personally, I sincerely hope that a rupture may be avoided...
...For some years the miners had a strong, compact fighting or-sanitation, which was an example to many other industries...
...Federation...
...You should be happy that you see the light, that you are a member of a movement as wide aa the world and as deep as the soul of humanity, with a message and ideals that will in time build a new Order...
...The Amsterdam meeting was attended by A. A. Pur-cell, President...
...I have personally signed over four hundred new members for our party in the last five or six months...
...We have paid off more of our National debt in the last, nine months than we have in the last twelve years...
...These clerical immigrants have been busy setting up independent trade unions for the Poles under their care...
...You must lead your man and, like the physician, you must immediately dtag...
...It is designed to bresk up the solidarity of our great party...
...Whilst there may be differences of opinion between leaders, it should be remembered that all are aiming at doing their best in the interests of the working people...
...You cannot produce a lily or a rose overnight, you let Nature take her coiirse, You spend several days in building a house...
...So always stay in the lead, keep above him...
...When they get close they clash...
...The harvest is white snd the reapers are few...
...G. J. A. Smit, of the Clerks' International, and national representatives as follows: Brantley (pleat Britain), Grassmaiv (Germany), D'Aragona (Italy), Caballero (Spain), Tayerle {Czecho-Slovakia), Duerr (Switzerland), Buisson (France), Stenhuis (Holland), Ztilswsky (Poland), Jas-zai (Hungary) and Madeen (Denmark...
...It's useless to try any longer...
...They must submit to your aggression, your optimism, your zeal and courage...
...For every excuse there is a reply that will drown their pessimism...
...While all sections of the community, and the workers especially, are suffering and will continue to suffer from the effects of that most terrible nightmare, those who are bearing the brunt are the employees of the industries 1 have mentioned, and with them the cotton operatives...
...STILLE JN my nine years of ministry for the Church of Christ, as an evangelist and pastor, and my work up-State organizing for our party, 1 have observed many things...
...I refuse to believe that it is on the down grade...
...If you shut both eyes, double your fists, and grit your teeth, you can defy all obstacles and come out on top...
...Shattering EsVecl el I Ml Many yesrs were spent in trying to organise the minera, and eonsid-erable succsse attended theae efforts...
...Take that out of my life and I am ready to explore the regions beyond the Stygian River...
...It's no use...
...Leon Jouliaux, C, Mertens and Th...
...be blind to everything but victory...
...Side by side, however, with the progress of organisation among the minera came consolidation and amalgamation on the part of the mine-ownera, until ultimately employers as well ss workers were almost perfectly organised...
...As one Italian Comrade...
...The biggest union there is the Indian Seamen's Union, with 11,000 members...
...Other business transacted at the Amsterdam meeting, in addition to the decision on the Russian trade union problem reported in The New Leader of Feb...
...2,000,000 Foreigners Toil in Fraace According to data collected by the Executive of the General Confederation of Labor of France, there ers now some 2,000,000 foreign workers in thst country of fifty different nationalities, including 800,000 Italians and 600,000 Poles...
...Each Pro*poet a Problem There is no set rule to follow...
...This is even done in' some rases by official Government Agents...
...the present practice of recruiting foreign workers in the name of the French Government without any system or any attempt at selection...
...Never was the old adage, "United we stand, divided we fall," more true than it is at the present moment...
...Day this year an anti-War Day and also to urge such bodies to continue their agitation for world peace, so that when the Disarmament Conference of the League of Nations, which will doubtless be held eventually despite the present poor outlook, due to Tory British blocking of the Geneva Protocol, opens the assembled1 diplomats will know that there is a powerful sentiment back of the demand for no more war...
...The General Council plans to hold a conference of organizations affiliated witli the I. F. T. U. at the...
...Talk it to the waiters in the restaurants, t o the landlord, bootblacks, newsstand dealers, preachers, church folks, everybody (Jive up your positiuns, hornet, friends and life if nereaaary...
...Now do you think for a moment) that a philosophy as beautiful as Socialism can be realized in a day, a year, or even many years...
...That is all nonsense...
...You cannot fail if you are true to yourself and your convictions...
...Nothing can stop a man if he determines to do a thing...
...You cannot fail...
...You are never beaten...
...I knock at the door and always make sure that 1 see my prospect first...
...He lives over and ovjer again the mistakes of the pasO You are an optimist...
...By ROBERT SMILL1F, M P IN the early days, even »<> re cently as my own personal expedience extends, the mine workers, generally speaking, knew who their efnployeis were Now all that has changed The private owners who were directly concerned with I he collieries, who knew not only the workers hut then dependents as well, and who wnt »:»«)• ready <u receive depu taiions e•••>•.' injustices, »>• practically disappeared Nowadays the miner has the greatest ditBculty in finding oul who i.» employers real ly are Not only have individual collier lea been amalgamated, but in many dutriits where nun and eteel aie pioduced or shipbuilding carried on ike mines have been linked up with these other concerns...
...It has recently started its own weekly, the Workers' Herald, published in Cape Town...
...Black African Workers Advencing The Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa is sn all-comprehensive trade union for colored workers in South Africa...
...Reason, deep meditation and cultured conversation are unknown to them Hp State they are as scarce as hen's teeth They will be scarcer For they are going add will soon be gone Many of the prospects start in something like this "Well, Comrade Stille, thit town IS different from all others It is a peculiar situation and it nil) lie difficult to build a local here' 1 Hy the way, I have heard that statement in every town I have 1 entered to organize...
...Since last July the All-India T. U. C. ha* been publishing n monthly review in English in Bombay...
...Don't you know Socialism belongs to the ages...
...don't flinch...
...J, W. Brown, Jan Oudegeest and Johann Sassenbach, Secretaries...
...We have doubled and tripled our registration everywhere —in New York from nineteen to forty-three thousand...
...To such remarks as these I reply: "Dear Comrade, what do you expect...
...When 1 go in a community to work the first thing I do is to get a list of names of those who enroll aa Socialists and the names of those who were formerly members of the local Next thing I lesrn is the psychology of the town...
...And with the banner of Socialist ideal* lifted high go aa far as you can possibly go This is the only rule I have and it never fails...
...Such combi nstions may have worked to the advantage of the capitalist, but they hsve certainly been against the interest of the producers of cosl, so fsr as wages are concerned...
...Cheap coal has been desired in otder to produce rbesp iron and steel, and, U secure thia chesp coal, wages have been forced down...
...Go ahead...
...The Confederation also declares that measures must be taken to prohibit the making of individual labor contracts between employers and foreign workers before the latter enter the country...
...Let us hsve more tolerance in our midst...
...Through various agencies the mine owners are trying even now to fix the blame for the threatened trouble on the men's leaders...
...This is a great help, if a prospect tells me he is a Communist, I tell him there is no place in the Socialist Party fur him, and leave him at once...
...The I. C. W. U. itself was founded six years ago, and its general secretary, Clements Kadalie, conducted an energetic propaganda campaign last year through Natal and the Transvaal, chiefly concentrating His efforts on Johannesburg...
...This office would have to establish branch offices all over the country, and would set up a regular daily news service, transmitting by wire and telephone reliable information concerning the demand and supply of labor...
...From 75 to 90 per cent sign and pay their dues...
...The I, C. W. U. has recently sent a protest to the South African Mine Workers' Union against its demand for the removal of native drill sharpeners, and their substitution by white workers...
...1 know beyond the shadow of a doubt that our party tan be reorganized and that comrades who have left our party can be brought back and made to be active again in the iau«e The first thing necessary to be successful as an organiser is to believe in the thing yourself Forget ourselves and close our eyes to everything but the Socialist cause See it day and night Talk it in the day Dream it in the night...
...During the last few months the All-India Trade Union Council has been frying to tighten up its organization and function along Western trade union lines as far as possible...
...Don't you realize that Marx has hcen dead only fifty years, and the life of our movement has been only a second on the dial of time...
...The new agreement ruiW to July 1 and the strikers' success has encouraged workers in other Rumanian ports to try to do likewise...
...It is alleged that ihey are trying to set class against clsss, and some people even hint that their aim is not the improvement of the conditions of tha mining community, hut to bring about a revolution...
...Socialism will never come back...
...The Commission consists of Jouhaux, Mertens and Brown from the Executive of the I, F. T. U., Dissman of the German Metal Workers' Union, and Eggert of the German Federation of Trade Unions...
...Comrade Debs has assumed the balance and we shall soon have the slate rloan...
...I The campaign was conducted on purely trade union lines, the object of the union being to raise the lsvel of the native workers by the adoption of the principle of equal pay for equal work...
...once told me, the American workers have too much macaroni in their stomachs...
...For humanity i* like the wheat and blades of grass...
...We are, therefore, on the verge of what may tyro out to be the meet serious industrial struggle that the coontrr has yel witnessed...
...We have failed...
...As I have urged that this is the time for consolidation in the industrial ranks, I would add snd emphasize the ssme for the politirsl side...
...There is another side to this quel-j lion...
...For fifteen years we have worked and where are we now...
...He is a pessimist...
...There are no two alike...
...This not only breaks the law, but it makes it impossible to do any real trade union work...
...The latest statistics pubJj«hed l»y Government departments go to show that while the wagee of the mine workeis stand al 06 pei cent, above the 1914 level, the lost of living, according to *he most le cent figure, i» ill pet .ml above what H was In 1914 The pieseM serious crisis in the mining industiy arises from I lie laudable desire of the mine worker to secure s weekly wage which shall he at the very least equal in pill (basing power to thai of mil Mine owneis say that the industry cannot afford to pay that This is equivalent to saying that the Indus try cannot afford a living wage...
...Not the Time far Quarreling 'I his is not the time for the lead ers to be quarreling with each other either on policy or any other matters, j On the political side advantage has been taken by the capitalist press to enlarge upon differences among the leaders...
...There is no man of experience and standing in the mining movement today who would desire to bring about a atoppage of work if it ceald at all bo avoided...
...don't doubt, don't fear...
...Only too well do the leaders realise that their own people suffer most in a struggle such as the one now threatened...
...LABOR JOTTINGS FROM ABROAD May Day Anti-War Day—The European Steel Truet—African Workers Progreea — Gains in India«— Many Foreigners in France—To Inspect Latin America...
...Neither inineis ni then leaders ran accept this view...
...Few can resist and turn you away...
...Edo Fimmen, of the Transport Workers' International...
...Getting new members for our party alone will not solve the problem After they are in the party we must devise some way to keep j them in it and keep them active...
...The French Confederation of Labor is not against the immigration of alien workers, as such immigration was necessary in France even before the war...
...We are just where w* started...
...It was decided to giant a request, by Canada for representstion on the Genersl Council and to reconsider South Africa's request at a subsequent meeting...
...There never was a time we needed workers as bad as we do now...
...If his pessimism is stronger than your optimism ha discourages you...
...1T0 this I reply: "Comrade, the tide of Socialism is rising all over the world...
Vol. 2 • March 1925 • No. 13
