LIBRARY,, LOS 
 
 ONE BIG UNON 
 
 Oi 
 01 
 
 \ W J- IT EMANCIPATE THE WORKER ? 
 
 II 
 
 5 1 
 
 
 BY 
 
 P. S. CLEARY 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CATHOLIC FEDERATION 
 
 California 
 
 Legional 
 
 aciiity 
 
 JOIN THE 
 
 ONE BIG UNION 
 
 STICKER USED BY THE I.W.W. 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 Price One Shilling
 
 THE ONE BIG UNION 
 
 WILL IT EMANCIPATE THE WORKER > 
 
 BY 
 
 P. S. CLEARY 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CATHOLIC FEDERATION 
 
 ONE BIG UNION 
 
 STICKER USED BY THE I.W.W. 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 SYDNEY 
 ANGUS & ROBERTSON LIMITED 
 
 89 CASTLEREAGH STREET 
 1919
 

 
 PART I 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF LABOUR 
 
 THE much prophesied and apparently inevitable war being Reconstruction. 
 over, we are now faced in every country by a labour con- 
 flict, equally prophesied and equally inevitable. Whether 
 it be true or not, as the German Professor Hauser argues, 
 that a world-war between the big industrial nations had 
 become an economic necessity, owing to the uncontrollable 
 impetus of quantitative production, there is no doubt that 
 the mighty struggle has precipitated a conflict between 
 Capitalism and Labour, even in countries not directly 
 engaged in the war. 
 
 The past four years have been equivalent to a century of 
 social education for the workers. At an early stage they 
 realized the weakness and waste of the capitalistic system ; 
 during the war they learned their own strength ; before its 
 close they experienced the futility of State socialism. In 
 the welter of reconstruction, to which the State, the 
 capitalists, and the workers are alike giving feverish 
 attention, it is perhaps quite natural that the section which 
 has the most to gain, and possesses a va&t superiority in 
 numbers, should be sorely tempted to try the shortest way 
 to the millenium. In the effort of Capitalism to re-direct 
 industrial production into the old channels, retaining where 
 possible the advantages given to it by quasi-military 
 organization, Labour sees an opportunity to outflank it. 
 The opponents stand, as it were, on a Hindenburg Line. 
 f and each is searching for the vulnerable salient. The prob- 
 lem for the statesman is to bring about an equitable peace 
 to restore stability, while preserving the nation. That there 
 
 1490213
 
 4 The One Big Union 
 
 are able and well-intentioned leaders on both sides, we have 
 reason to hope; but that there are evil men in both camps 
 we have cause to know. Whatever schemes are put forth 
 must be submitted to the tests of knowledge and experience. 
 They must satisfy ethical, economic, and political require- 
 ments, if they are to be successful. They must be practical, 
 not based on the dreams of neurotic enthusiasts or selfish 
 agitators. 
 
 One of these schemes is now attracting some attention in 
 Australia. Its influences would have been quite negligible, 
 if its propaganda had not been insidiously spread among 
 working youth for some years, while the Labour leaders 
 who might be expected to watch the interests of their 
 followers looked idly on. It seemed to be nobody's 
 business to "put the acid" on bogus social programmes. 
 But the scheme has now come into the open as the "One 
 Big Union," and its promoters have made an attempt to 
 capture the Labour Unions ; it is, therefore, a fitting time to 
 test its promises, in order not only to show that it cannot 
 attain its object, but to sift the good from the bad in its 
 aims and methods, and to indicate a course more likely to 
 lead to the emancipation of the workers. 
 
 It will be necessary to lay down our foundations. We 
 must make clear what we mean by Capitalism and by 
 Labour, and show their mutual relations as they are, and 
 as they ought to be. We can then discuss methods allegedly 
 capable of bringing about the desired end. Among such 
 methods we shall consider the One Big Union. 
 
 Capitalism and Capitalism must not be confused with capital. By 
 OSS ~ Capitalism we mean in the first place the domination of 
 capital, particularly money-capital, over the entire economic 
 field; secondly, the subordination of all interests connected 
 with production to the one consideration of personal gain. 
 The "class-war," in which industrial unrest is the most 
 conspicuous feature, is not between capital and labour, but
 
 The Present Condition of Labour 5 
 
 between supporters of the economic system known as 
 Capitalism and the workers. Its combatants are not grades 
 of society, or producers and consumers. They are the classes 
 that produce on one side, and on the other the class that 
 has obtained absolute control of production and sole 
 ownership of the product. The workers know quite well 
 that there are three necessary factors in production: land, 
 which supplies the materials ; capital, which contributes the 
 sinews ; and labour, which provides the power. But they 
 claim that no one of these factors is entitled to more than 
 its share of the product. Capital, by acquiring ownership 
 of the materials and of the product, is thereby placed in a 
 position to levy unjust toll on the workers, both directly 
 as workers and indirectly as consumers. 
 
 Labour's aim, therefore, should be to unite with other 
 consumers, in order to adjust the interests of the three 
 factors in production and, by bringing about production for 
 use and not for profiteering, to prevent the exploitation of 
 consumers and workers alike. The coalition should claim 
 that, as with the League of Nations, there should be no 
 secrecy between the parties to the social compact; that the 
 worker must not be considered as a mere "hand" or instru- 
 ment of the capitalist, but as a man having a soul to save 
 and an equal right with all other citizens to liberty and 
 self-government; that, in order to exercise this right, he 
 must be given a full knowledge of prices and profits, and 
 an equal voice in the direction of production. Otherwise 
 it will not be possible to make a fair adjustment of the 
 shares of capital and labour in the product, or to assess a 
 just price to be charged against the consumer, whose 
 interest, as we have seen, is of vital importance to the 
 worker. The point to be kept in mind is that men must be 
 considered before property. This being secured, whatever 
 is good and noble in our civilization should be conserved. 
 The aim of the highest democracy is distributive justice.
 
 6 The One Big Union 
 
 Preliminaries During the twenty-five years which elapsed between the 
 igg e. L on cl on dock strike and the beginning of the great war, 
 capitalism and labour have been preparing for a 
 catastrophic outbreak of the "class-struggle." It was in 
 1889 that skilled unionists first realized the strength of the 
 unskilled masses, and the unity of their interests. 
 Capitalism realized the position also, and set about 
 organizing and consolidating its forces with phenomenal 
 rapidity. By means of amalgamations, combines, and 
 federations, the financiers (masquerading as "Captains of 
 Industry") have attained controlling power in the political, 
 industrial, and commercial life of every nation. It is 
 characteristic of Parliaments that tHey load their statute 
 books with Acts and Regulations restricting the activities 
 of labour unions. But there are no effective laws to restrain 
 capitalists from combining for any object, from ruthlessly 
 destroying "blackleg" capitalists, from doing what they like 
 with their funds, from dismissing employees without reason 
 or compensation. All legislation is based on the theory that 
 the business belongs to the capitalist who is usually a 
 financier or the head of a financial institution ; regardless 
 of the fact that capital is a commodity for the use of the 
 community, and not for the mere enrichment of a section. 
 By these methods, the conditions so deplored by Pope Leo 
 XIII "The concentration of so many branches of trade in 
 the hands of a few individuals, so that a small number of 
 very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses of the 
 poor a yoke little better than slavery itself" have been 
 considerably aggravated. 
 
 To pass from generalities to facts, we find that just prior 
 to the war four per cent, of the population of Britain owned 
 ninety per cent, of the wealth ; and in the United States 
 two per cent, of the people own sixty per cent, of the 
 national wealth, while, at the other end of the scale, sixty 
 per cent, hold only five per cent. When, therefore, Mr.
 
 The Present Condition of Labour 7 
 
 Lloyd George appeals to the miners not to imperil the ex- 
 port trade, he finds them cold; when he tells them that to 
 grant their demands would mean a heavy increase in the 
 price of steel and coal, they want to see balance-sheets. 
 They have been told that the excess profits made by the 
 capitalists during the war amount to no less than 
 450.000,000 
 
 The attitude of Capitalism towards the worker and the 
 consumer may be illustrated by two authenticated anecdotes. 
 When the President of the American Sugar Company was 
 asked, before the Industrial Commission of 1900, if he 
 thought it was fair to make consumers pay dividends on an 
 over-capitalisation of twenty-five milions, he answered: "I 
 think it is fair to get out of the consumer all you can." He 
 went on, "I do not care two cents for your ethics. I do not 
 know enough of them to apply them." And when the late 
 Pierpont Morgan was asked before witnesses if he thought 
 that ten dollars a week was enough for a waterside worker, 
 he replied that he believed it was, "if that was all he could 
 get and took it." We are justly shocked when Vincent St. 
 John, the I. WAV. historian, writes : "The question of right 
 and wrong does not concern us." But what difference is 
 there between his ethics and those of the Captains of In- 
 dustry ? 
 
 Here in Australia, Capitalism is no less solidly entrenched. Capitalist 
 The shipping combine can paralyse any section of trade 
 which refuses to accept its terms. The Merchants' Associa- 
 tions can destroy any trader who cuts their schedules of 
 prices. The Employers' Federation is formed expressly 
 for the combat with Labour. Its programme was outlined 
 in the Melbourne Argus of August 7, 1917. "The idea" 
 says the Argus, "is to follow upon Labour's example, and 
 have a union of employers. This union will not be on the 
 lines of the existing organizations, that embrace employers
 
 8 The One Big Union 
 
 generally, but will be on the basis of trade groups. Under 
 the proposal all the trades connected with one industry will 
 be organized as a group. Each trade will form its associa- 
 tion, each association will send delegates to a council, and 
 the council will control the (industrial) group. It will be 
 compulsory on employers to join, if the Labour unions are 
 to be successfully encountered." Here we have in the 
 ranks of Capitalism the I.W.W. plan of organization, put 
 into operation twelve months before the One Big Union was 
 started. And when the employers' union says that member- 
 ship is compulsory, it is compulsory. Capitalism has 
 methods of compulsion which are impossible to Labour. 
 The Labour Labour, on its side, has sought by various methods of 
 
 organization to free itself from the shackles which were o 
 relentlessly binding it. In England and in English-speaking 
 countries much was expected from craft unionism, and on 
 the whole the craft unions have served the workers well. 
 Objectives, all more or less socialistic, have been placed 
 before the people by able writers; and it is characteristic 
 of the race that the so-called socialism was mostly of a 
 practical kind, and not overlaid by the fads of Continental 
 Socialists, who encumber their schemes with foolish 
 marriage notions, birth control, socialisation of children, 
 and other matters which disgust the sane and the clean- 
 minded. Within the present generation trade unionism has 
 been enabled by extensions of the franchise to add direct 
 political representation to its other methods ; and, though 
 enthusiasts have been disappointed with the results, most 
 people will be of opinion that the experiment has not yet 
 been fairly tested. The man who expects to anticipate a 
 century's constitutional development in one generation must 
 be very young indeed. It takes a class some time to turn 
 the current of thought in countries where, up to a decade 
 ago, "freetrade" and "protection" were the burning ques- 
 tions among a people brought up on the old dry-as-dust
 
 The Present Condition of Labour 9 
 
 political economy. It is something to have put Adam 
 Smith on the top shelf. 
 
 With thorough outside organization. Labour in politics 
 can do good work yet. There is nothing to prevent Labour 
 from forcing Parliament to fix the .prices of commodities ; 
 to regulate the interest on capital ; to insist on prompt 
 publication of balance-sheets for all industrial businesses, 
 according to schedules which will leave no loop-hole for 
 disguising profits; to prevent forestalling and monopoly; 
 to establish self-government in industry, either on the 
 Whitley lines, or better ones if they can be framed, Many 
 of these steps were taken in war-time; they stand good in 
 times of peace. Parliaments would have done better if 
 Labour had better representation ; and with the franchise at 
 its command, what is there to stop it? 
 
 Side by side with political representation, Labour evolved 
 what appears to be a more effective method of organizing 
 its forces. Realizing that the universal use of machinery 
 in huge businesses enormously increased the proportion of 
 unskilled and partly skilled workers, it became clear that 
 craft unionism required to be buttressed by new methods. 
 The tool a man uses is no longer the indicator of his trade. 
 He must be classified by the service for which his labour is 
 given. That, and no more, is the meaning of industrial 
 organization ; and, as we have seen, it is considered a suit- 
 able method for the Employers' Federation. But we shall 
 see later that the term "industrial organization" has be- 
 come the catchword for as many rotten projects as the term 
 "socialism." Like the countryman on his first visit to 
 town, the worker is easily gulled by glib schemers, lavish 
 of glowing promises. The hard-working man has little 
 time to do hard thinking, even if he had the opportunity. 
 # He is justly suspicious of the public press (which, gener- 
 ally speaking, is the ally of Capitalism), and he is too apt 
 to take on trust statements made in the name of Labour,
 
 io The One Big Union 
 
 which may have no foundation in fact and no justification 
 in theory. 
 
 The Evils of The result of the unnatural development of Capitalism 
 is a condition of social instability just as dangerous to the 
 rich as it is to the poor. Unless the class which controls 
 government is inspired by justice, there is a grave risk that 
 the oppressed classes will be driven to excess, as was the 
 bourgeoisie in France a century ago, and as were Hampden 
 and his class against the Stuart tyranny. Writers of various 
 shades of opinion declare that the controllers of Capitalism 
 have become so obsessed by the mad struggle for wealth as 
 to have outrun discretion. Under the protection of 
 monopolies which they pretend will enable them to reduce 
 the cost of production they increase the prices of their 
 commodities. When they are compelled to increase wages 
 and it is on record that wages are never increased except 
 under compulson they put up prices to a greater extent. 
 In order to conceal their plunder, they disguise their state- 
 ments of profits by every trick known to the financial 
 juggler. They waste huge sums on unnecessary middle- 
 men, a class largely created by competitive Capitalism. In 
 their efforts to increase production they are continually 
 harassing the workers by new "efficiency" schemes, and 
 faster machinery. The whole tendency of Capitalism is 
 to lower the status of the working man by increasing the 
 efficiency of the machine. Quantitative production is the 
 sole object, and it is considered not immoral to destroy 
 products rather than cheapen the market. Capitalism 
 would make man exist to serve production; but the proper 
 view is that production must be made to serve man. These 
 evils bring their punishment with them. By lowering the 
 status of the workers, . their intellect and character are 
 lowered also, and they become more easily the tools of 
 revolution. Anarchy flourishes among the "submerged" 
 classes. Quantitative production, by compelling com-
 
 The Present Condition of Labour H 
 
 petition for markets, is also a fruitful cause of war. 
 Hitherto it has been possible to slacken production without 
 causing serious loss to the capitalist ; but now his huge 
 organizations have become so costly that "overhead 
 charges" compel him to go on without rest. 
 
 One of the gravest evils of the capitalistic system is its The 
 deliberate and callous use of a margin of unemployed 
 labour a percentage of casual workers which is said to be 
 necessary for industrial stability, but for whose sustenance 
 Capitalism makes no provision. Under paganism the 
 chattel slave was property and his owner maintained him, 
 whether sick or at work; under serfdom the worker was 
 bound to the soil and enjoyed its frugal fruits. But in 
 freeing the labourer the overlords shook off all responsi- 
 bility. The worker may have a vote, but nobody is 
 responsible if he starves. In any fair solution each 
 section of industry must be made to bear the cost of its sick 
 and unemployed, as it did in the days of Guilds. The 
 Capitalist is maintained by his business, whether he is sick 
 or idle; similarly, if the so-called "periods of over- and 
 under-production" are justification for keeping a margin of 
 unemployed, the upkeep of that margin is a fair charge on 
 the industry, and not on the State for the State represents 
 the consumers. In fact, of course, this margin is a reserve 
 army of penniless dependents, kept so for use in breaking 
 strikes. 
 
 The outbreak of the war found Capitalism utterly The 
 incapable of coping with the problem of efficient production, Capitalistic 
 Perhaps we are not able to realize this fully in Australia. War-Time. 
 where so little was demanded of war industry, and where 
 so many activities, such as railways, are owned by the State. 
 We saw some of it, however, in the waste and inefficiency 
 connected with the inter-state shipping system. But in 
 Britain and the United States the failure of the capitalistic 
 system was overwhelming. In order to prevent waste,
 
 12 The One Big Union 
 
 "weakness and inefficiency the Governments had to step in 
 .and prop up the rotten system, though even in time of peril 
 they were not able or willing to eradicate the evils of 
 Capitalism. Mr. Lloyd George appealed to the Labour 
 Congress : "We can win this war with you ; we cannot win 
 it without you." He declared that the Government would 
 take over and run the mines, railways, shipping, and 
 factories, and control the distribution of foodstuffs and 
 materials. Labour gave up without a struggle many of the 
 fruits of a century of organization. It agreed to abstain 
 from strikes and to extend the hours of work ; it per- 
 mitted the dilution of labour to allow women and children 
 to do men's work, while the men were conscripted for the 
 army; it yielded the worker's right to transfer his services 
 from one place to another. But both Labour and the 
 Government were outmanoeuvred at every turn by the 
 capitalists. Government failed to nationalize the industries, 
 but was diddled into standing behind the capitalist. Pro- 
 duction increased enormously, and so did profits. Wages 
 soared but not so high as prices. The dishonesty of the 
 employers led to a few (remarkably few) labour troubles; 
 but, while the public press made a noise about every little 
 labour outbreak, it was silent about the ruthless profiteer- 
 ing, the treasonable contract scandals, and the financial 
 jugglery that was going on all the time. Though a 
 promise was made that after the war all trade union rights 
 would be immediately restored, great uneasiness prevailed 
 in labour circles. The Times Industrial Supplement was so 
 enamoured of the increased production that it declared "we 
 must munitionize our industries" which would mean that 
 the State would be expected to stand behind the profiteer 
 for all time, while he made his millions by the aid of con- 
 scripted labour. The ideal of British supremacy was "the 
 nation under orders" in workshop, mine, and mill. 
 
 Is it any wonder that some of the workers, with this
 
 The Present Condition of Labour 13: 
 
 dark outlook before them, listened to the whispers of 
 Bolshevism? Many of their ideals were shattered. They 
 realized the futility of State Capitalism, which would be no 
 better for them than private Capitalism. Some of their 
 leaders were in the Cabinet, and were inclined to preach 
 at them. The hour was at hand for the glib and 
 irresponsible agitator with his certain cure for all ills. He 
 talked of Internationalism and other big things, and would 
 claim comradeship with the inhabitants of Mars if it suited 
 his schemes. Such is the origin of the One Big Union 
 proposal. When it reaches its aim, Britisher and Yankee, 
 Australian and Jap., Coolie and Hottentot, will all be pay- 
 ing their dues to a Grand International Council.
 
 PART II 
 
 A SYNDICALIST SCHEME 
 
 The One Big THE Australian Labour leaders, some of whom are no 
 longer labour leaders, are very much to blame for the 
 spread of this absurd propaganda. It should have been 
 their duty to investigate the nostrums of newcomers, and 
 to test their claims. There is no difficulty in showing that 
 the syndicalist philosophy (of which the One Big Union is 
 a crude product) can neither free the workers, nor even 
 unite them. It is like building a brick house without 
 mortar. The strongest attacks of syndicalists on Capital- 
 ism are trifles compared with the attacks they make on each 
 other. They build their scheme on distrust and suspicion, 
 and end up by distrusting each other. 
 
 At present the One Big Union is in the tadpole stage, 
 much head and a very thin tail. One of its Melbourne 
 comrades, Mr. Dodds, makes no bones about telling its 
 leaders so. For some time it had been incubating quietly 
 by means of I.W.W. "literature" imported from America. 
 But when the I.W.W. was suppressed as such, a section of 
 the remains essayed to start an Australian union on a 
 slightly disguised basis. The goods in the shop window are 
 marked "Industrial Organization" ; but "made in America" 
 is visible on every article, and on the objective. Industrial 
 organization, in itself, is not objectionable. Some years 
 ago, the Sydney trade unionists prepared a scheme on the 
 lines of the British Labour Movement, but for some reason 
 it was dropped. In Britain the craft unions are used as a 
 basis for organization ; but the American scheme appeals
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 15 
 
 solely to the unskilled workers, and does not conceal its 
 contempt for craft unions. 
 
 It seems to us that the constitution of the Australian The A.W.U. 
 Workers' Union provided the soil for this Labour weed. 
 The A.W.U. has added considerable strength to the Labour 
 Movement, particularly in its earlier stages. There are no 
 more generous and steadfast Labour men in Australia than 
 the country workers of the A.W.U. Under able organizers 
 it became a widespread body, established a newspaper, and 
 succeeded in getting representatives into Parliament. Ex- 
 tending its influence, it accepted affiliation with other 
 unions of non-skilled labourers; in the end, though it had 
 never been over-particular that its members should be 
 shearers, it felt that the title "Workers' Union" would 
 better express its ideals than its birth-name "Shearers' 
 Union." As the subsidiary unions increased, it conceived 
 the idea of capturing the entire Labour Movement, and 
 in time found itself able to dominate both the Political 
 Labour Conference and the Central Labour Council of the 
 Unions. It is this influence, emanating mainly from un- 
 skilled workers, which has disrupted political labour and 
 seriously disorganized the Sydney Labour Council. A 
 great impetus was given to unionism by industrial legisla- 
 tion (since 1906 no fewer than 445 unions have been formed, 
 enormously increasing the strength of leagued Labour), 
 and the political success of the Labour Party at 
 the polls demoralized men who saw lucrative positions in 
 their grasp, if they were prepared to do a little scheming in 
 the Leagues. The result is that probably thirty per cent, 
 of league members are potential politicians, ready to eat 
 each other for "cake-walk" seats. When the time of trial 
 '*came, these men possessed neither the ability, nor the train- 
 ing, nor the integrity to win through, and the political 
 machine broke down.
 
 1 6 The One Big Union 
 
 Labour need not be disheartened by one failure. But 
 the men to reconstruct it are not the men who broke it, 
 many of whom are themselves defeated aspirants for 
 political life. We should ask ourselves "May it not be 
 better to discard the weak parts of the old machine, rather 
 than import a new machine which has been a failure where- 
 ever it has been tried?" It is significant that, though the 
 A.W.U. presided at its inception, it is now by no means 
 so keen on the One Big Union. 
 
 Incubating The scheme for the One Big Union was first drawn up 
 
 and adopted at a Trade Union Congress held in Sydney on 
 August 6, 1918. The unions were not fully represented 
 at this congress, ten or twelve of them having broken away 
 from the Sydney Labour Council owing to differences in 
 war policy. The congress appointed an organizing and 
 propaganda committee, which issued a circular to the unions 
 asking them to take a ballot on the scheme, and to send in 
 the result by November 12. In order to assist members to 
 make up their minds, the committee issued a constitution 
 (with preamble) and a couple of leaflets adapted from 
 American models. These leaflets contained no facts or 
 figures, but were merely glowing prophecies of the coming 
 dawn. However, by the aid of the constitution, and of 
 newspaper articles by authorized exponents of the scheme, 
 we are able to place it in its setting. As might be expected, 
 there is no evidence of original thought about it ; but one 
 point sticks out clearly. It is that the originators of the 
 movement were blankly ignorant of its history as well as 
 of its objective. All that unionists were asked to do was 
 well expressed by the Australian Worker of September 19, 
 1918, "Let us accomplish the One Big Union, and all else 
 shall be added unto us." We can read its propaganda till 
 our eyelids grow heavy and red, and we cannot get an inch 
 farther in our search for enlightenment.
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 17 
 
 One cannot but admire the audacity of the propaganda To Kill the 
 
 Craft Unions. 
 committee in asking the unions to vote on the scheme at all. 
 
 An official leaflet tells us that the One Big Union "gives 
 the lie to the notion which dominates the ordinary trade or 
 craft union that the interests of employers and workers are 
 harmonious"; and Trautmann's One Great Union says 
 ''The trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the 
 workers into the belief that the working class have interests 
 in common with their employers." Another writer, Nor- 
 man C. Anderson, declares that trade unionism is an anti- 
 quated product of Capitalism, and forecasts the opposition 
 of certain "aristocratic unions" to the scheme. The 
 trade unions were therefore asked, in the circular issued 
 by the Organizing Committee, to commit suicide of course, 
 after making their wills and to get it over before 
 November 12. If they had performed that act of hari- 
 kari (which they did not) what would have been the fate 
 of their members? 
 
 These questions the more experienced unionists asked; 
 but they did not get business answers. Poetical outbursts 
 may suit Postmasters'-General, but they won't boil the billy. - B -U- Poets. 
 It's all very well to read in the Australian Worker of 
 October 31 : "We are on the eve of a new world. . . . The 
 new world is going to come by the new unity. All worlds 
 are born in that way. . . . Millions of particles of matter 
 are flying about in space, apparently unrelated, and in a 
 condition of the wildest disorder. Suddenly they begin to 
 assemble together, moved by a mutual attraction, or in 
 response to some centralizing and co-ordinating principle. 
 
 A great light shines where before was darkness 
 
 That's why it is possible to get so enthusiastic about the 
 One Big Union." When the average trade unionist reaches 
 
 * How fortunate it is for Labour that such enlightened 
 thinkers have made this discovery before it was too late!
 
 i8 The One Big Union 
 
 this amazing conclusion he is apt to murmur: "Take away 
 the highbrow stuff and tell us if the scheme is doing any- 
 thing, anywhere?" And, when he is informed that it is 
 making wonderful progress in almost every civilized 
 country, he obviously retorts : "As, for instance . . . ?" 
 
 It soon became apparent that trade unionists were not 
 quite as gullible as the inventors of the scheme imagined. 
 Then strange things began to happen. The original idea 
 was to "launch" the Union on October 14. But, as not 
 infrequently happens with launchings in Australia, the 
 event did not come off. Then it was proposed to go on 
 with a ballot of trade union members ; for reasons variously 
 given, the ballot was not taken. On January 9 (just before 
 the Melbourne Conference) Mr. Garden, the General 
 Secretary, is reported in the Australian Worker as saying: 
 "We have every reason to be satisfied with practically 
 unanimous support from all the States and nearly all the 
 aggregations of active unionists. We have no fear for the 
 future." After the Melbourne Conference, Mr. Garden 
 said, on January 21 : "We have to use strategy against 
 strategy: . . . We originally intended that we should go 
 back to our respective provinces and urge all the workers 
 there to take a ballot whether they would favour the Big 
 Union or not, but we have changed our opinions since." 
 He then sketched a scheme whereby the One Big Union 
 organizers would start "workshop committees" of a few 
 select men "on the lines of the Hamburg Soviets, or the 
 Russian Bolsheviks," and "force the unions to compel thein 
 officials to take a ballot." 
 
 This indiscreet talk alarmed other leaders; Mr. Mul- 
 vogue, the Melbourne secretary, denied that there was any 
 intention to abandon the free ballot, and characterised the 
 New South Wales proposal as an "opposition scheme." 
 The Adelaide delegate to the Melbourne Conference
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 19 
 
 further denied that the minority had decided to club the 
 majority into submission, while his colleague, Mr. Howard, 
 said he was disappointed with the scheme, as he could not 
 see that the Big Union would secure freedom for the 
 masses. Mr. Garden was 'also challenged at Adelaide for 
 his statement that every State had adopted the scheme. 
 An Adelaide ex-President, Mr. Melbourne, said that dele- 
 gates knew that statement to be incorrect, and that "they 
 could not follow a leader who would make such an inaccu- 
 rate statement." The Adelaide Trades and Labour 
 Council "repudiated" the scheme by 28 votes to 27. Perth 
 (W.A.) Trade and Labour Council supplies the most 
 humorous episode in the campaign to date. They had not 
 received any copies of the scheme, but they resolved to 
 adopt it. One fact stands clear in this story. Some of the 
 leaders are described by their associates as reckless in their 
 statements, and under such circumstances the basis of 
 confidence is wanting. 
 
 The committee of the Sydney Labour Council, which The O.B.U. 
 
 . 
 
 drafted the constitution of the One Big Union, decided that jjy ^ 
 the official name of the organization shall be "The Workers' 
 Industrial Union of Australia," and that its object shall be 
 to bind together all the "wage-workers" in every industry 
 to achieve the objective set forth in the Preamble. It must 
 be said that the committee made no attempt at originality, 
 either in the preamble, or in the industrial classification of 
 the members, or in the Union's system of government. The 
 preamble, with a few verbal changes, is taken from the pre- 
 amble of the Industrial Workers of the World ; the classifi- 
 cation and system of government are copied from Traut- 
 mann, an I.W.W. leader, who in turn adopted them from 
 the French. We give in parallel columns the I.W.W. 
 preamble and its Australian counterpart.
 
 20 
 
 The One Big Union 
 
 THE 
 I.W.W. PREAMBLE. 
 
 (a) The working class and 
 the employing class have 
 nothing in common. 
 
 (b) There can be no peace so 
 long as hunger and want are 
 found among the millions of 
 working people, and the few 
 who make up the employing 
 class have all the good things 
 of life. 
 
 (c) Between these two classes 
 a struggle must go on until 
 the Workers of the World 
 organize as a class, take 
 possession of the earth and 
 the machinery of production, 
 and abolish the wage system 
 .... The Trade 'Unions aid 
 the employing class to mislead 
 the workers into the belief 
 that the workers have interests 
 in common with their 
 employers. 
 
 AUSTRALIAN 
 O.B.U. PREAMBLE. 
 
 (a) We hold that there is a 
 class struggle in society, and 
 that the struggle is caused by 
 the capitalist class owning the 
 means of production, to which 
 the working class must have 
 access in order to live. The 
 working class produce all 
 value. . . . The interests of 
 these two classes are in con- 
 stant conflict. 
 
 (b) There can be no peace so 
 long as want and hunger are 
 found among millions of 
 working people, and the few 
 who constitute the employing 
 class have all the good things 
 of life. 
 
 (c) Between these two classes 
 the struggle must con- 
 tinue until Capitalism is abol- 
 ished. Capitalism can only, be 
 abolished by the workers 
 uniting in one class-conscious 
 economic organization to take 
 and hold the means of pro- 
 duction by revolutionary, in- 
 dustrial and political action. 
 "Revolutionary action" means 
 action to secure a complete 
 change, namely the abolition 
 of capitalistic ownership of 
 the means of production 
 whether privately or through 
 the State and the establish- 
 ment in its place of social 
 ownership by the whole com- 
 munity. Long experience has 
 proved the hopeless futility of 
 existing political and industrial 
 methods, which aim at mending 
 and rendering tolerable, and 
 thereby perpetuating Capital- 
 ism, instead of ending it.
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 
 
 21 
 
 (d) The Trade Unions 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 defeat one another in 
 wage-wars. 
 
 (e) These conditions can be 
 changed, and the interest of 
 the working class upheld, only 
 by an organization formed in 
 such a way that all its members 
 in any one industry, or in all 
 industries if necessary, cease 
 work whenever a strike or 
 lockout is on in any depart- 
 ment thereof, thus making an 
 injury to one an injury to all. 
 
 (f) By organizing industrially 
 we are forming the structure 
 of the new society within the 
 shell of the old. 
 
 (d) Craft unionism fosters 
 conditions which allow the 
 employer to pit one set of 
 workers against another set of 
 workers in the same industry, 
 thereby defeating each in turn. 
 
 (e) These conditions can be 
 changed, and the interests of 
 the working class advanced, 
 only by an organization so 
 constituted that all its members 
 in any one industry, or in all 
 industries, shall take concerted 
 action when deemed necessary, 
 thereby making an injury to 
 one an injury to all. 
 
 (f) The new Industrial Re- 
 public of Labour is forming 
 itself within the shell of the 
 present Capitalistic society. 
 When the workers are organ- 
 ized, the shell shall break and 
 Labour emerge free. (This 
 paragraph is not from the 
 O.B.U. preamble, but from a 
 leaflet signed by the general 
 secretary). 
 
 It will be seen that where the O.B.U. preamble departs Evasive 
 from its model it is apt to get bogged. Take the long- 
 winded third paragraph. Can anyone tell us what is meant 
 by abolishing State ownership, and establishing in its place 
 ownership by the whole community? Mr. Judd, who was 
 a delegate at all conferences, complains that it is unfair to 
 lead the public to believe that the I.W.W. and O.B.U. pre- 
 ambles are practically identical. The vital difference, he 
 contends, is that the O.B.U. preamble stands for political 
 action on the highest civilized plane (whatever that may 
 mean) while the I.W.W. relies on industrial action alone. 
 But Mr. Judd also says that the O.B.U. aims at "abolishing 
 the existing system and its parliament and inaugurating an 
 industrial parliament," a statement that convicts him of
 
 22 The One Big Union 
 
 throwing dust in the eyes of workers who have no time for 
 the I.W.W. Mr. F. D. Williams, one of the South Aus- 
 tralian delegates, reported to the Adelaide Trades and 
 Labour Council on February 9 that the O.B.U. would make 
 use of politics until it was able to take over industry. But 
 the Brisbane Worker gives the show away, in its issue of 
 October 17, 1918, by stating that Mr. Garden mentioned at 
 a Victorian preparatory conference that the scheme was the 
 cream of the thought of men like Debs, De Leon, and 
 Trautmann, who are the principal propagandists of the 
 I.W.W. in America. Trautmann teaches (One Great 
 Union, page 25) that representatives elected by the workers 
 in their industrial organizations will constitute the parlia- 
 ment of the future for municipal, national, and international 
 affairs. But Trautmann can afford to be honest. He is 
 not throwing out bait to catch union flatheads, for the 
 I.W.W. ignores trade unionism altogether, while the O.B.U. 
 wants it to -come in and be killed. 
 
 The idea of one big industrial union is by no means new. 
 It has been tried in many countries, and has invariably 
 failed. Robert Owen, who first attempted the scheme 
 of a "General Union of the Producing Classes" 86 
 years ago, was an able man, with an honest desire to help 
 the workers. In his scheme, each department would 
 manage its own trade, just as in the O.B.U. The whole was 
 to be governed by a "Grand National Consolidated Trades 
 Union," which would employ paid lecturers to give courses 
 in the new philosophy. By 1836 it had 100,000 members, 
 but it was gradually displaced in the workers' minds by 
 political Chartism and orthodox craft unionism. One- 
 Big-Unionists say that it is not fair to use the failure of 
 Robert Owen's scheme as an argument against the present 
 movement, because labour organization was not advanced 
 enough in those days to profit by it. Perhaps that is so ;
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 23 
 
 but, if labour conditions are much more advanced now, the 
 credit for that must be given to the craft unions. 
 
 In the dark days of the middle nineteenth century in- The Rise of 
 
 C* fJ * 7 " 
 
 dustrial unionism dropped into qblivion. Men dissatisfied yno 
 with labour conditions turned to one or other of the in- 
 numerable brands of Socialism, which promised so infallibly 
 to redress the injustice of class rule. It is one of the 
 delusions of the One-Big-Unionists that they are aiming to 
 bring about the solution of the "class struggle" on the lines 
 of Karl Marx. Nothing could be wider of the mark. 
 Marx's idea of the social revolution was a series of evolu- 
 tions leading to "that more or less rapid transformation of 
 the vast juridical and political superstructure of society 
 which results from the transformation of its economic 
 foundations." The O.B.U. wants to bring about the 
 revolution with one shot. Marx advocated common owner- 
 ship of the means of production, distribution and exchange. 
 The O.B.U. preamble repudiates State ownership, and aims 
 at giving both ownership and control of industry to the 
 wage-earners.* To this form of government its founders' 
 have given the name of Syndicalism, from the French word 
 syndicat a trade union. "The primary object of Syndical- 
 ism," says Mr. Philip Snowden, "is to organize all the 
 workers in a trade into one union, and then to federate 
 those unions into a national and, eventually, into an inter- 
 national organization." 
 
 The syndicalist, like the anarchist, repudiates the State. 
 "The expressed theory of most syndicalists," says Mr. G. D. 
 H. Cole (World of Labour, page 409) "is that the State 
 must be destroyed, root and branch; it must not only be 
 cleared out of industry, but abolished altogether. The 
 producers, organized in industrial unions, trades councils, 
 
 * What the rest of the public are to do is not stated. Possibly 
 they may form another Big Union to capture the business back 
 again.
 
 24 The One Big Union 
 
 and in a general federation of these, are perfectly capable 
 of carrying on the work of the nation." And again, 
 "Anarchism is the father of Syndicalism ; but trade unionism 
 is its mother, and it was in the fertile womb of trade 
 unionism that, in the nineties (in France) the Anarchist 
 seed grew unseen." In place of political action, its method 
 of government is to be "direct action." Trautmann, the 
 cream of whose thought (according to Mr. Garden) in- 
 spired the self-chosen few at Melbourne, says of "direct 
 action" a fundamental method of the O.B.U. that it is 
 "any and all obstructions placed in the process of pro- 
 duction, and is tantamount to the 'propaganda of deed' of 
 the terrorist anarchists." Readers will perceive that every 
 writer quoted in this inquiry is a labour man or a syndicalist. 
 This is not an apology for Capitalism, and our object is to 
 show that the One Big Union cannot conquer it, and that 
 the workers would be worse off if it did. 
 
 As Mr. Cole says, anarchism crept unseen into the French 
 trade unions, where Syndicalism had its birth. French 
 labourites have always fallen easy victims to anarchism, 
 from which they have earned more bullets than benefits. 
 Like the British, French labour unionism underwent a cen- 
 tury of persecution. When Waldeck-Rousseau passed the 
 Law of 1884, giving the workers the right of combination, 
 they saw in some of its red-tape provisions a desire to 
 bring them into close touch with the State; and they had no 
 reason to love State Departments. The opposite result 
 followed; they fled to the arms of the political socialists, 
 under Jules Guesde, who formed them into a Federation 
 of Trade Unions. Their objective was to send a strong 
 body of Socialists into Parliament; but they were not very 
 successful, for French trade unionism had intensely local 
 ideals. 
 
 Three years later, however, the Paris Municipal Council 
 made an experiment which led to a complete revolution in
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme '2$ 
 
 French labour methods. It opened a "Bourse du Travail" 
 or Labour Bureau, which was to be a centre for the trade 
 unions of the district, an employment exchange, and a 
 library and club room. The idea caught on. Bourses 
 sprang up in many towns, and soon became centres of 
 revolutionary activity much to the disgust of the staid 
 municipal councillors. Quite a number of able men began 
 public life in their debating rooms. In 1893 they formed 
 a Federation of Bourses, and in the following year 
 affiliated with the Federation of Trade Unions, thus form- 
 ing the General Federation of Labour (Confederation 
 General du Travail, universally known as the C.G.T.). 
 They formed the radical wing of the new body, and 
 followed their leader, Aristide Briand, in his contest with 
 Guesde for the leadership of Labour. Briand was ably 
 assisted by the General Secretary, Fernand Pelloutier, a 
 great organizer, who developed the idealism and anarchism 
 which marked the C.G.T. Briand introduced the policy of 
 the "general strike," and his success in carrying it against . 
 the Guesdists at the National Congress of 1894 led to 
 Guesde's retirement. It was then submitted to the unions; 
 but it was not finally adopted until eight years' hard work 
 had been spent in propaganda, in which Briand played a 
 principal part.. He was also the first to use the terms 
 "sabotage^" and "direct action," which are now recognized 
 as special methods of Syndicalism. 
 
 Another seven years passed, and the founder of syndical- 
 ism became Premier of France. When his successors of 
 the C.G.T. attempted to practise the methods which he 
 taught them, he turned the guns of the soldiers on them. 
 One-Big-Unionism is no more protected against the black- 
 leg than was the "effete craft union." 
 
 In the manifesto of the C.G.T. we find the familiar The Story of 
 
 division of the State into two classes, one of which, the ^ General 
 
 Strike. 
 capitalist class, produces nothing; the other, the working
 
 26 The One Big Union 
 
 class, produces everything. The manifesto has no time for 
 Parliament. The Socialist who enters Parliament is a 
 traitor; he is on the side of the bourgeoisie and its one- 
 sided laws, backed up by partisan justice, police and army. 
 Let the people by direct action decide everything. Direct 
 action will not mean violence after the first step ; Capitalism 
 will yield. The union has no money. What matter ; take 
 it from the capitalist class. They got it by theft. "Hungry 
 wolves have nothing to lose ; the proletarian has no duty 
 towards the bourgeoise fatherland ; his fatherland is his 
 stomach."" This kind of talk went on for more than 15 
 years, and then the C.G.T. began to meet trouble. The 
 Postal Employees, who were affiliated with the C.G.T., 
 struck work in March, 1909, and demanded the resignation 
 of the Under-Secretary. For a few days matters looked 
 serious. Clemenceau was Premier, and his reply was to 
 dismiss all the strikers. Their leader ("King" Pataud, as 
 the boulevardiers called him, a dismissed electrician) had 
 the lights put out in Paris much more effectively than M. 
 Viviani put out the lights of Heaven a year or two earlier. 
 But three days' rest was enough for the strikers, and they 
 begged to be taken back. The C.G.T. did its best to keep 
 the agitation alive, and decided to call a general strike of 
 all workers for May I. The railwaymen and miners 
 refused to come out, and the "Bureau Confederal," a body 
 corresponding to the Grand Council of the O.B.U., was 
 compelled to call the strike off. 
 
 In October, 1910, the C.G.T. succeeded in getting the rail- 
 way men out on strike. This time Briand, the former syndi- 
 calist, was Premier. He knew the strong and weak points of 
 Syndicalism. He at once mobilised the strikers under the 
 Military Conscription law, and put them, as soldiers, on the 
 engines. He thereby showed how little he believed in his 
 soap-box propaganda to the soldiers : "When you are 
 ordered to fire on insurgent workers, it is your duty to aim
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 27 
 
 at the heads or the hearts of the officers who would compel 
 you to commit the crime of fratricide." The angry strikers 
 posted up at street corners Briand's incendiary speeches of 
 the past. He was spat at in Parliament. But he kept to 
 his determination. He declared that he had not changed a 
 jot in his principles; but he was now head of the State, and 
 must preserve peace. The strike was over in seven days, 
 and the C.G.T. as a fighting factor was broken. While we 
 thus show the futility of One-Big-Union methods, we can- 
 not admire the Briand type of statesman. How fitting it 
 was, that he should, as Premier, be the man to cable to Mr. 
 Hughes in 1916, urging the workers of Australia to pass 
 conscription. 
 
 The inevitable happened. The leaders blamed each The Decay of 
 other for the failure of the strike. The raitwaymen split t e B F l l' ench 
 into sections ; the craft unions drew out of the C.G.T. Two 
 years later the executive called a. strike of school teachers, 
 but the teachers refused to obey. Since then the French 
 Big Union has lived on its memories. It is odd to find the 
 organization of this dead scheme tacked on to the preamble 
 of the I.W.W. to create the One Big Union. For the 
 I.W.W. is simply mass action. In practice, it does not con- 
 tain even the rudiments of industrial organization ; though 
 its writers love to explain the scheme by diagrams, really 
 copies of the French model, which did try to classify the 
 industries. Trautmann has a huge circle representing a 
 hemisphere. It is divided into sectors of varying sizes. 
 At the centre is a small circle inscribed "Grand Council." 
 The diagram resembles nothing but a spider's web, the 
 Grand Council being the spider. Not one of the lines run- 
 ning to the circumference can be touched without the know- 
 ledge of the spider. The rules speak of "local autonomy" ; 
 " but local autonomy is explained to mean that no local 
 section or division can take any action till it obtains per-
 
 28 The One Big Union 
 
 mission from the body above it. It was exactly the same 
 with the C.G:T. The "Bureau Confederal" consisted of 
 seven men, six of whom were secretaries. These men were 
 continually saying that they had no authority, and that the 
 authority rested in the District and other councils. But 
 they made all appointments ; ran the journal ; and were able 
 to get all their ideas carried out, without appearing to boss 
 the machine. And, when they quarrelled, the Union broke 
 down. 
 
 The C.G.T. at its strongest contained about one-third of 
 the trade unionists of France, but this strength chiefly lay 
 in the miners and transport unions. On its councils, the 
 biggest union had the same representation as the smallest, 
 and this weakness is copied by the O.B.U. The fact is that 
 Syndicalism, unlike Socialism, has never appealed to 
 intellectual men. Besides Robert Owen, the only men 
 whose thoughts are worth reading are the Frenchmen, Sorel 
 and Lagardelle. The Americans are merely ranters. Briand 
 wrote a pamphlet entitled "The General Strike and the 
 Revolution," which was used as a kind of charter. The 
 C.G.T. published papers, but neither The Voice of the 
 People, nor Direct Action attained a circulation of more 
 than 7,000 copies. The movement never obtained any in- 
 fluence over the workers on the land. In a kind of post 
 mortem, Lagardelle blames for its failure the tendency of 
 the leaders to get into Parliament. Yet some of the 
 founders of our O.B.U. are in Parliament ; some have tried 
 to get there and failed ; all are eagerly watching for "cake- 
 walk" seats. The cruellest blow to Syndicalism was when 
 its prophet turned it down. Writing to the Italian 
 Syndicalist Congress in 1916, Sorel said: "Syndicalism has 
 not realized what was expected from it. Many hold that 
 the future will correct the evils of the present; but the 
 author is too old to live in distant hopes." Perhaps" the
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 29 
 
 "Australian Socialist Industrial Republic of Labour" is one 
 of those distant hopes. 
 
 Syndicalism never caught on in Germany, the home of One-Big- 
 
 T T ' * 
 
 so-called scientific socialism which, considering the 
 enormous industrial development of that Empire, is a very 
 significant fact. In Italy it was used by a group of 
 anarchists to gain recruits. Its history in England is 
 chequered. At the International Socialist Congress held in 
 London in 1896 much excitement was caused when certain 
 French Unions, which had renounced political action, 
 claimed representation. They were rejected by huge 
 majorities. Syndicalism was confused with aggressive 
 trades unionism by the British till 1910, when Haywood, 
 head of the I.W.W., came from the United States to Eng- 
 land, and (aided by the versatile Tom Mann, who had been 
 everything by turns and nothing long) made an effort to 
 breathe life into it. Ben Tillett also took some interest in 
 it. English trade unionists were disappointed with their 
 parliamentary representatives, who after all were but a 
 radical wing of the Liberal party, and had no solid backing 
 in the constituencies. Certain decisions of the law courts, 
 notably the Osborne judgment and the strike prosecutions 
 of 1911, angered Labour men; also the "literature" of the 
 I.W.W. had been freely circulated in England for some 
 time. But Haywood made very little impression, except 
 among the hot-headed miners of South Wales, who will 
 grasp any stick to beat the Tories. The vicious attacks of 
 the Tory press also helped Haywood, and gathered around 
 him a number of young men who saw a chance to bring 
 themselves into notoriety. It is easy to get men for the top 
 billets in wild-cat propaganda. 
 
 After Haywood's departure, the movement failed to ad- 
 Vance, though it has revived since the war began, owing 
 to the out-manceuvring of the Labour leaders by the 
 Government, and the failure to repress profiteering. Tom
 
 3O The One Big Union 
 
 Mann ran a paper for some time, called the Industrial 
 Syndicalist; in it he developed a blundering kind of 
 I.W.W.-ism, in which he proposed to hand over the works 
 to the State and let the workers control them. This is not 
 very different from the plan of the Independent Labour 
 Party, but it is poles apart from syndicalism which, as we 
 learn from the preamble of the O.B.U., will have nothing to 
 do with "ownership through the State." But Mann be- 
 came disheartened. After all his work, he complained, 
 "not five per cent, of the people understand it." It is plain 
 that he did not understand it himself. We shall see that 
 many of the O.B.U. leaders do not understand it, or else 
 they are not open about it. Ramsay Macdonald says that 
 at the time of his writing (Socialism and Syndicalism, 
 1912) syndicalism was negligible in England, both as a 
 school of thought, and as an organization for action. 
 The Industrial There is no doubt that the most wide-spread organization 
 of syndicalism is the Industrial Workers of the World. 
 The corrupt state of American politics and the growth of 
 huge industrial cities, where vast parks of marvellous 
 machinery are kept ceaselessly at high pressure by hordes 
 of unskilled workers drawn from the half-civilized serfdom 
 of Europe many of them from an atmosphere of 
 perennial anarchism who provide a fertile field for revolu- 
 tionary agitators. Huge combinations, like the Steel Trust, 
 with its 200,000 "hands" make the idea of industrial organi- 
 zation feasible, and the unscrupulous methods of Big 
 Capitalism destroy all moral sense in the workers, as well 
 as in the employers. Trade Unionism in the United States 
 is organized in the American Federation of Labour, which, 
 however, makes little appeal to the polyglot proletarians 
 who form the bulk of machine workers. An attempt was 
 made in the Eighties to organize the unskilled in the 
 Knights of Labour, but at that time the "class" propaganda 
 failed to establish a permanent bond. When the Knights
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 31 
 
 became ineffective, the -Western Federation of Miners 
 started an organization on industrial lines in 1892. They 
 became very powerful, but met with a crushing defeat 
 during a big strike twelve years later. 
 
 From the debris of that fight arose the Industrial 
 Workers of the World. Its first prominent leader was 
 "Big Bill" Haywood, who organized the first convention at 
 Chicago in 1905, and whose unsuccessful prosecution for 
 murder during a labour dispute gave the new movement a 
 great advertisement. More than half the members of the 
 I. \Y.\Y. are foreign-born, and very many of them are not 
 naturalized. That explains why the Government is able to 
 deport them. The programme of the I.W.W. is to organize 
 wage earners (or, as they love to call themselves, "wage- 
 plugs") on a class basis as revolutionaries.. < Although they 
 speak of industrial organization, and publish diagrams 
 showing classified departments of labour, the I.'W.W. has 
 never gone beyond simple mass, or mob, action. It dis- 
 cards all accepted standards of ethics and religion, on the 
 ground that they have been devised for the protection of 
 "capitalistic society." It denies the right of the employer 
 to exist, "for he is but a parasite on the social body, and 
 must be driven out of, existence by all available means, just 
 as pathogenic microbes must be driven out of the patient's 
 system." When we find the Secretary of the Australian 
 
 ' O.B.U. writing in an official pamphlet, "Why should the 
 workers, who have this great power, this great intelligence, 
 this god-like ability, allow the ownership and management 
 of the industries to rest with a small class of capitalists, 
 many of whom are nothing but upstarts, called in the 
 vernacular, 'cockroaches'?" we can guess where he 
 borrowed his language. But how did he miss the "patho- 
 
 genie microbes ?" 
 
 But the history of the I.W.W. is a series of splits, which The IW.W. 
 completely destroy its claim to solidarity. The brilliant a Chaos -
 
 32 The One Big Union 
 
 Debs was a founder of what he called the "One Big Union," 
 but he ultimately deserted it for socialism. Another 
 notorious leader was a Pole with an unpronounceable name 
 who called himself Haggerty, a regular practice of the 
 Russians and Eastern-born I.W.W. men. There were three 
 sections in the young movement. One stood for opposition 
 to all political action ; another for opposition to all existing 
 parties ; the third stood for a combination of industrial 
 and political action in conjunction with'the Socialist parties. 
 The Socialists were the first to draw out, almost at the 
 start. After a stormy year or two, the personal followers 
 of Daniel De Leon broke away and formed a rival I.W.W. 
 at Detroit. The De Leonites are extravagant extremists 
 who refuse to vote at political elections. The main 
 body continued to centre at Chicago under Haywood, 
 Trautmann, St. John, and other leaders. Consequently, 
 when we are told that the O.B.U. is built on the cream of 
 the thought of men like Debs, De Leon and Trautmann, its 
 founders are combining the differences of men who would 
 not like to be found in the same paddock. 
 
 The Lawrence The one feather in the cap of the I.W.W. is the Law- 
 rence strike of 1910, and there its method was fully illus- 
 trated. We have accounts of this episode, both in the U.S. 
 Labour Reports, and in the I.W.W. pamphlets. Lawrence 
 was a town of 86,000 persons in 1910, and it was built on 
 one industry the textile mills. Of its population 41,000 
 were of foreign birth, and 32,000 of foreign parentage. 
 The remainder included negroes. What a field for the 
 I.W.W.! The workers' demands were simple. Their 
 hours were reduced by a State law, and they wanted their 
 former pay retained. The strike was the simple mass 
 action of unskilled and unorganized \vorkers. Haywood, 
 the I.W.W. leader, who butted in when he heard of the 
 trouble, could only make himself understood by waving 
 his hands and shouting, and the polygot strike com-
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 33 
 
 mittees only knew by guess what their comrades were say- 
 ing. Sympathy was 'against the millowners, and supplies 
 poured in from outside. The men won, but only because 
 the town had but one class of workers, and it was possible 
 to warn intruders away. 
 
 That is the sum total of the victories of the I.W.W. Its 
 leaders persistently follow up labour troubles, but when 
 they are not warned away by the local workers, they do 
 more harm than good to the aims of the strikers. Perhaps 
 the most convincing evidence that the I. \Y.\Y. has failed, 
 is the secession of the body which founded it, the Western 
 Federation of Miners, which went back to the much des- 
 pised craft organization, the American Federation of Labour. 
 \\"e thus see from these frequent breakaways that the 
 I.W.W. method does not stand for solidarity. The 
 I. WAY. now represents unskilled labour only, and the 
 elaborate diagrams of Trautmann are mere moonshine. 
 In the opinion of Mr. G. D. H. Cole, whose ability and 
 loyalty to labour ideals are unquestionable, "neither the 
 doctrine of the old Chicago I.W.W. leaders, nor De Leonite 
 class unionism, are any longer likely to make headway." 
 
 The philosopher of syndicalism is Georges Sorel. He is The 
 to it what Marx has been to socialism and Adam Smith to Syndicalism 
 freetrade. He is a brilliant and well-read man, who falls 
 into very simple fallacies. He believed himself to be a 
 follower of Marx ; but Marx, though he prophesied the 
 revolution, did not propose to force it on the people. Sorel 
 taught the doctrine of "frightfulness" as a first principle. 
 According to him history shows that the middle classes 
 under the influence of terror will submit like sheep to 
 spoliation. In his most important book. Reflections on 
 Violence. Sorel says that the future belongs to the party 
 which makes the most daring use of the revolutionary 
 spectre. He admits that syndicalists will be in a minority 
 until they are successful ; but he instances many great
 
 34 The One Big Union 
 
 revolutions which have been brought about by minorities. 
 He is silent about the much greater number which have 
 failed. Sorel argues that it is wealth which corrupts 
 
 . politics. But has not ambition an evil influence also? 
 "The State is coercive," he complains. But will not the 
 O.B.U. be coercive, in which nothing can be done without 
 the sanction of the Grand Council? Sorel condemns the 
 politician for believing himself to be a superior person, and 
 objects to the pretended superiority of the "intellectuals."' 
 But is he not caught in his own trap, pretending that he is 
 intellectually superior to those who have framed other 
 theories of government ? And will not the autocratic heads 
 
 . of the O.B.U. consider themselves superior persons? One 
 of its manifestoes speaks of great intelligence and god-like 
 ability. What more need be said? 
 
 The General The first weapon of syndicalism is the "General Strike." 
 
 Strike 
 
 This is not a strike against reduction of wages, or for better 
 
 conditions of labour. It needs no grievance at all. It is 
 merely a weapon to hasten the revolution, by annoying the 
 capitalist, so that he may say : "Come along and take the 
 old works ; I am full up of trying to run them." This may 
 seem to be far-fetched, or at least a foreign fancy. Let us 
 see what Tom Mann says of the general strike ; he is British 
 enough for any critic. According to him, all in syndicalism 
 leads to it and from it ; it is the centre. It is the revolution 
 itself; with it the syndicalist millenium will come auto- 
 matically. "We shall prepare the way as rapidly as 
 possible for the general strike of national proportions. This 
 will be the actual social and industrial revolution." One 
 day, at one word of command, the workmen in every trade, 
 every industry, every State service will all down tools. 
 There will be violence and sabotage. "The State will be 
 paralysed ; the army will be powerless or will revolt ; the 
 bourgeoisie will be deprived of all the comforts of life. 
 Things will come to such a pass that the rich will flee the
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 35 
 
 country and thus the workmen come into their own." Could 
 anyone credit such a rigmarole? Yet we get the same silly 
 stuff handed out to us daily in pamphlets issued under the 
 authority of the Workers' Industrial Union ; notably one 
 entitled Revolutionary Industrial Unionism prepared by a - 
 Melbourne committee; and also in the One Big Union 
 Herald; the O.B.U., and other publications for which some 
 poor fools must find the money to pay the printers. 
 
 But all industrial history is against the theory that large The General 
 bodies of men can be trained to down tools merely at the 
 command of any executive. It is impossible to get 
 unanimity even in the executive itself. Sections of 
 the Australian movement are already calling each 
 other "bogus." The O.B.U. complains that under 
 the existing defective Labour organization men without 
 . a grievance will not strike to help men who have 
 one. We cannot see that the O.B.U. will make any 
 difference. The French Syndicalists "Big Union" broke 
 down because the teachers or the railwaymen would not 
 come out just when the executive ordered them. To give 
 the General Strike any chance of success we must have, 
 first, a deep conviction among the workers that it is 
 necessary; secondly, the support of public opinion; thirdly, 
 no excuse for violence. Violence produces fear and 
 opposition in the majority of citizens, especially in a country 
 where everybody is enfranchised, and trained from child- 
 hood to look to the Government for protection. Jaures, the 
 French Socialist, truly says "the general strike is a trap 
 for the workers. It seems to them simple, but it is really 
 very complicated." For it is founded on the huge fallacy 
 that the workers are workers only. Being workers, they 
 are also consumers. If a general strike took place, all 
 * transportation would stop, all shops be shut. In a day 
 there would be no meat, no bread, no food of any kind. 
 The workers and their families would be the first to suffer.
 
 36 The One Big Union 
 
 They would be compelled to use sabotage or starve. 
 Syndicalist leaders may disown sabotage, but they cannot 
 get away from it. A whiff of grapeshot, and the strike 
 would be over. If all unionists came out, they would not 
 have one-third of the workers (equal to one-eighth of 
 the people) on their side; furthermore, they would find it 
 hard to hit on a time to suit all the big unions. Merely 
 forming One Big Union will make no difference in the 
 conditions under which a general strike must be carried on. 
 Sorel was too acute a thinker to believe that the General 
 Strike would ever become a reality. But, he says, even if 
 it does not happen, it is a beautiful ideal, a "myth," which 
 one must not question, but follow. "Strikes have given 
 birth in the minds of the people to the noblest, deepest, and 
 most inspiring of motives ; but it is the general strike that 
 groups all these ideas into a universal picture and, by bring- 
 ing them together, gives to each its maximum of possible 
 influence." But chasing myths is no good to the worker. 
 He wants to know whether it will "cut ice" or not that is, 
 unless he has a good job on the strike committee. The 
 O.B.U. propagandist fills him up with stories of successful 
 strikes. A Melbourne pamphlet, Revolutionary Industrial 
 Unionism gives quite a number of examples from Queens- 
 land to show that it is easy as falling off a log for the 
 O.B.U. to win strikes. Mr. E. H. Lane in his book, One 
 Big Union and Reconstruction, says that the 1917 strike was 
 the O.B.U, in practice. If that be so, why blame the craft 
 unions, for its failure? 
 
 Capitalism As a matter of hard fact, can we believe that the general 
 
 Entrenched. str ike, or the irritating strike, or the lazy strike, will find 
 Capitalism such an easy victim? Mr. Cole is under no such 
 delusion, and, unlike the syndicalists he brings evidence 
 to prove his case. Capitalism has .three lines of defence. 
 Its first effort would be to break the strike by starving the 
 workers. If that should fail, it might provoke them to
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 37 
 
 sabotage, in order to invite the aid of the State. We have 
 seen this frequently in big strikes ; we saw it again recently, 
 at Glasgow and Belfast. Should the second line fail, Capital- 
 ism can ask the State to nationalize the industries in order 
 to have 'its dividends guaranteed. As far as strike policy is 
 concerned, the workers would be infinitely worse off under 
 nationalization than under private Capitalism. For the 
 success or failure of a strike depends in the long run on 
 public opinion ; and it would be almost impossible to rally 
 public opinion in favour of a revolutionary strike, except 
 in countries where the bulk of the people are unenfran- 
 chised. The only appeal to rouse the public would be an 
 appeal for democracy. Syndicalism cannot make that 
 appeal, for it is, as Lagardelle said, "a reaction against 
 democracy," It is afraid to trust the people. "Labour 
 loses its sting, its zeal for the Holy War," said Ben Tillett, 
 "when it associates with democracy." To the consumer, 
 O.B.U. or producers' ownership of the product would be 
 no better than capitalistic ownership. I am quite aware 
 that some of the O.B.U. leaders now say they want to 
 hold the industries for the people; but they only say that 
 under compulsion, and the O.B.U. doctrine is that no man 
 is bound by his promise. Their constitution pledges them 
 to oppose State ownership ; their history proves that to be 
 their doctrine ; and when they say anything else, we do not 
 believe them. 
 
 A very interesting question to ask an O.B.U. organizer is After the 
 "What will happen the day after the Revolution?" When 
 the wage-earners own the workshops, the shipping, the 
 warehouses, the farms, and all other means of production, 
 how will they carry on? The O.B.U. propagandists tell 
 us nothing. They simply assure the workers that the 
 , management of their industries ought to have "no fearful 
 mysteries for them," as they are endowed with "great 
 power, great intelligence and god-like ability." But what
 
 38 The One Big Union 
 
 authority will govern the country? If it is the One Big 
 Union, then we are merely exchanging one kind of class 
 rule for another. The Grand Council, elected by industrials 
 to govern industry, will end up by becoming a political cabal. 
 Imports and exports, storage and distribution of com- 
 modities, tariffs and excise, health, education, justice, 
 foreign relations, and other big responsibilities must fall 
 on some organized body. The One Big Union manifesto 
 says "Political government is something apart from the 
 workers . . . very few persons, even lawyers and poli- 
 ticians, do understand it." That is not very flattering to 
 the workers, and offers a pessimistic outlook for the 
 "Socialist Industrial Republic of Labour." But it is odd 
 that almost every man on the executive of the O.B.U. is 
 either breaking his neck to get into this political life which 
 the workers "do not understand," or has been a candidate 
 whom the electors turned down. 
 
 More O.B.U. This s j lence about ^ f uture j s not peculiar to the O.B.U. 
 roctry. _ J 
 
 It is characteristic of all- syndicalists. Sorel, De Leon, 
 
 Trautmann and the rest of them all refuse to tackle this 
 problem. "Join the O.B.U." says the Australian Worker, 
 "and everything else will be given unto you." Sorel says, 
 "Reason blinds man. He has genius only in proportion as 
 he acts without reflection. Let us have idealism, en- 
 thusiasm and direct action. Instinct is higher than intellect." 
 "Syndical action" he adds, "develops the intelligence, en- 
 larges the heart, fortifies the character." We learn from 
 a romance by Pouget and Pataud, the Parisian general 
 strike heroes, that there will be no need of a State when 
 the O.B.U. has taken possession of the works. The brother- 
 hood of man will be such a binding force that the functions 
 of government will be very few and simple. The abolition 
 of the wage system will be the death of all tyranny. There 
 will be no need of an army, or a navy, or a huge public 
 service. "Order will rise with the sun on the morning of
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 39 
 
 the Revolution." \Ye may, I suppose, picture as presiding 
 deities the dissolved executive of the Sydney Labour 
 Council, surrounded by the 320 graded officials of the One 
 Big Union. 
 
 In the course of a very able article in the British publi- Tall Talk 
 cation, The Crusade. Sidney and Beatrice Webb examine 
 Syndicalism from this point of view. They show that in 
 the Syndicalist State there would be the same army of 
 officials as at present ; that the worker would still have to 
 receive wages, which the council of unions would not allow 
 
 . his union to fix at its own scale. This would be necessary 
 in order to prevent one trade from exploiting the rest, and 
 to regulate the supply of labour and the output in each 
 industry. There would still be "bosses," as there are in 
 Government departments at present ; and experience shows 
 that even where the working man is boss there are 
 grievances, especially when he is a public servant. Syndi- 
 calism does not evade the tyranny of the majority ; nor are 
 the apostles of class-consciousness too tolerant of those who 
 do not agree with them. We are already told that the 
 O.B.U. proposes to establish "shop committees" in order 
 to force their movement on the workers ; and when once 
 the workers are enlisted under the Grand Council, there 
 will be no doubt about the "boss." "The one union prin- 
 ciple is," said Mr. Garden, "that he who does not work 
 shall not eat." That principle may do away with the 
 financier; but the foreman or director, even if his name 
 is not Carnegie, will not smell more sweet ; nor will efficiency 
 and the card system be a whit more acceptable when they' 
 are enforced by a Trotsky. 
 
 If the propagandists would get down to bread and butter 
 details like these instead of soaring in the clouds, we should 
 
 * know where they are. Mr. Garden, who has nothing to say 
 about how the scheme will arrange for the government of 
 Australia, spreads himself on a vision that forecasts the
 
 4O The One Big Union 
 
 abolition of "geographical boundaries and separate flags." 
 He wants to see "the workers of the whole world united 
 as one people." In the meantime, potatoes are selling at 
 28/- a cwt. If the O.B.U. is not to show its fruit until the 
 spirit of race is driven out of English and Irish, French 
 and German, Turk and Armenian, Australian and Jap, the 
 poor down-trodden wage-slave has still a long way to go, 
 and the pound-a-year subscription to the O.B.U. will serve 
 to plant daisies over the remains of the present executive, 
 and of at least their immediate successors. 
 The O,ne Big The slickest trick of the O.B.U. advocates is to cling 
 
 Union a ]jk e a p aras ite to various labour movements. For instance, 
 
 / nrasite. 
 
 the General Secretary asks in the Sydney Morning Herald 
 
 of December 21, 1918, why there should be 17 unions at 
 Cockatoo Island when one would do? At a later date he 
 talks of "20 or 30 unions." Mr. Garden implies that the 
 only solution is the O.B.U. But it is not the mere grouping 
 of unions which makes the O.B.U. a "dud" for the workers. 
 It is its objective of taking and holding all industry. The 
 National Union of Railwaymen in England is exactly the 
 sort of "one union" that would suit Garden Island. But 
 the N.U.R. has never had any time for the One Big Union 
 scheme of industrial government. Mr. Willis, President 
 of the O.B.U., says the Big Unionism is necessary to defeat 
 Big Capitalism. But the O.B.U. is more than Big Unionism. 
 "It is," says one of its leaflets, "the union different to all 
 others" ; and it is just this difference that makes it a "dud." 
 Our idea of Big Unionism is the British "Triple Alliance" 
 of Railwaymen, Miners, and Transport Unions ; but that 
 great workers' combine, which controls three million 
 unionists, is actually built up on the "obsolete trade 
 unionism" which the O.B.U. proposes to kill. Mr. Arthur 
 Rae, another leader of the O.B.U. says it is a socialistic 
 scheme. But "John O'Rockie," a well-known socialist 
 writer in the Brisbane Daily Standard, shows from its pre-
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 41 
 
 amble that it is anti-socialist ; and socialist parties in 
 France and America are its very pronounced opponents. 
 Another admirer of the O.B.U. in the Queensland 
 Worker of January 2, on a page devoted to propaganda, 
 quotes a column from S. G. Hobson, which he says is a 
 "find" and a "gem." It is a condemnation of capitalism with 
 which many readers will agree; but (and this the quoter 
 does not disclose) Mr. Hobson does not advocate the 
 O.B.U. as a remedy. He does not want to abolish 
 capitalism, but to harness it, by means of the National 
 Guild scheme. Another example of ploughing with a strange 
 heifer occurs in a pamphlet by "Comrade Dodds, of Vic- 
 toria," entitled, How One Big Union Works. It is a very 
 interesting account of the State Meat Works in Brisbane. 
 But there is not the slightest analogy between that, which 
 is a Government scheme to combat profiteering, and the 
 One Big Union project: and the author is quite well aware 
 of the fact. He observes that the Government, after 
 paying the workers higher wages than they could get in 
 private employment, made a profit of 57,591 ; and he asks 
 why the meat workers, "who are entitled to the full product 
 of their labour," should hand over that sum to the State 
 (that is, to the community) any more than to the Meat 
 Trust. Mr. Dodds conveniently overlooks the fact that 
 peaceful industry is only possible under the protection of 
 the State; he forgets, too, that the 310 butchers employed 
 did not find either the capital of organization for carrying 
 on the business. In Victoria another Big Union Advocate, 
 Mr. Lemmon, M.L.A., said in Parliament on November 
 2ist last, "Industrial tyrants like the Chairman of the 
 State Harbour Trust would go down like private employers, 
 when the workers took control." "No longer," said Mr. 
 Lemmon, "will the lion lie down with the lamb; the lamb 
 will be inside, and the lion will be supreme." There is not 
 much tendency in either case to carry on industry for the
 
 42 The One Big Union 
 
 benefit of the community, as the "lion" urges when he is 
 in a tight corner. 
 
 We might continue to show how the O.B.U. hides behind 
 every sort of social reform in order to hoodwink the public. 
 In one part of an official pamphlet it claims that it will 
 "increase wages" ; on the next page it boasts that it will 
 abolish the wage system altogether. It goes into the 
 Labour Conference to advocate the abolition of the craft 
 union system ; when it is defeated, as at Adelaide, it calmly 
 changes front and states that it is prepared to work hand- 
 in-hand with any method of Labour organization. But it 
 will only work to kill them. It is part of the I.W.W. 
 constitution to keep no agreement that does not suit it, and 
 to use every advantage to destroy opposition. A prominent 
 official of the O.B.U. admits that if it is not allowed to work 
 openly in the unions, it will operate like "white ants" 
 to destroy them. The Australian Labour Movement 
 must make it perfectly clear that between it and the 
 I.W.W., or its double the O.B.U., there is an un- 
 bridgeable gulf, and that no man can be a member 
 of the two bodies. The workers must not be deceived by 
 accusations that the Australian Labour Party is too slow. 
 It was going strong when its leaders stumbled, and it will 
 soon get into its stride again, if it profits by its experience. 
 The hottest extremist is not the safest leader. Briand was 
 the soap-box hero of Paris, and W. M. Hughes could talk 
 red-raggery with the loudest. 
 
 The^O.B.U. ^ Let us put the acid on the O.B.U. propagandists. How 
 im ' many of them have been ten years in Australia? How 
 many have been five ? What are their authenticated records 
 elsewhere, and what is their Labour record here? They 
 cannot complain against the personal argument, for they 
 introduced it themselves, by. referring to the "effete union 
 secretaries" who are alleged to be squealing because they 
 will lose their positions. Yet not only does the O.B.U.
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 43 
 
 provide a number of fine jobs, but practically every man 
 engaged in promoting it is a paid secretary of one of those 
 despised unions. And it is notorious that most of the 
 "effete union secretaries" would be welcomed with open 
 arms into the O.B.U., and given a job at least as good as the 
 billets they have. 
 
 The estimates of the One Big Union merit a little O.B.U. 
 attention. The workers in the State of New South Wales, Finance - 
 on whom it has designs, number 709,912, of whom 237,714 
 are organized in Trade Unions. The receipts in 1917 from 
 these unions were 263,272, and the expenditure 238,355. 
 O.B.U. critics estimate their expenditure for this State to 
 be 87,000, and claim a saving of 150,000. But they make 
 no allowance for benefits given under the present system, 
 which (with legal expenses for wages boards, &c.) absorb 
 about one-fourth of the receipts. As far as we can gather, 
 the O.B.U. proposes to appoint six Federal officials at 600 
 a year; 19 at 500; 97 at 300; 97 at 250; 50 at 208; 
 and 50 female typists at 130. This figures out at 83,350, 
 and makes no provision for travelling and hotel expenses 
 for the hundred paid organizers, or for printing, or rent, 
 or the countless accessories which make up a balance sheet. 
 An element of humour enters into this part of thq scheme. 
 Mr. E. H. Lane in his book, One Big Union, lays down 
 the doctrine of equality of payment as an ideal of the 
 scheme. "Is not every worker in the community," asks 
 Mr. Lane, "just what his heredity, qualities, environment, 
 and opportunity have made him? Why then should any 
 section of the workers, for performing certain work, 
 superior though it may be, expect greater reward than other 
 workers who also give their best to the community? 
 Ethically the pernicious system of present day labour re- 
 ward is in direct antagonism to the grand ideals of the 
 Labour movement." We leave this conundrum to the 
 O.B.U. organizers. We will also ask them why the "female
 
 44 The One Big Union 
 
 typists" are paid less than the men, in "direct antagonism 
 to another grand ideal of the Labour movement?" 
 
 Further, what right has the O.B.U. to assume that it 
 will enrol 237,000 members in New South Wales? The 
 French "Confederation General" never enrolled one-third 
 of the organized workers ; the British Syndicalists never 
 became a body worth considering; the I.W.W. never 
 amounted to one twenty-fifth part of the American 
 Federation of Labour, or, if we reckon paying members, 
 not half of that. There is nothing in the ability or character 
 of the O.B.U. leaders to lead us to believe that they will 
 do better. Take away a number of youthful unskilled 
 labourers, mostly the foreign element on the waterside, and 
 the field for revolutionary unionism is exhausted. 
 
 'Literature?" It seems to us that the One Big Union started before it 
 was ready, and got bushed in the dark. "Give the workers 
 One Big Union literature," says one leaflet, " and they will 
 soon be advocates of the only system that matters to-day." 
 But, unfortunately, what O.B.U. propagandists call "litera- 
 ture" is flapdoodle that asserts everything and explains 
 nothing. Each leader contradicts the other. The Australian 
 Worker for some weeks contained a couple of columns which 
 it called "One Big Union Shots." Here is a specimen: 
 "The O.B.U. scheme stands for a system under which your 
 purchasing power will be equal to your producing power.'' 
 We are not told how. In any case, if your purchasing 
 power is not better than your producing power, you will 
 spend all your days just doing enough work to be able to 
 get enough to eat to enable you to work to get enough to 
 eat and so on to the grave. Another shot- is : "The One 
 Big Union is the great revolutionizing force that will secure 
 opportunities for better lives and work for those who work." 
 But there is not a hint of how this is going to happen. 
 That kind of "moonshine" literature reminds us of what 
 someone stated in the press during the recent influenza
 
 A Syndicalist Scheme 45 
 
 scare ; "As the result of inoculation against influenza," said 
 this bright young man, "all my corns dropped out." He 
 must have been one of the young men who are writing One 
 Big Union literature.
 
 PART III 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 AFTER all this criticism it may reasonably be expected that 
 we should set forth in our turn a way to improve the 
 position of the workers. The development of a capitalist 
 One Big Union with its tendency to wage-restriction, ruth- 
 less profiteering, and greedy competition is immoral, 
 cowardly and unchristian, and must be combated. But the 
 way to fight it is not to create in opposition to it another 
 immoral, cowardly, selfish, exclusive combination of wage- 
 earners, which makes no distinction between the innocent 
 and the guilty. In a country where every adult has the 
 franchise, and where the wage-earners, in alliance with all 
 sufferers from the domination of Capitalism, have an 
 enormous preponderance in numbers, the true policy is to 
 organize and socially educate that majority until their sense 
 of citizenship prevails over the evil. 
 
 Wages and It is generally conceded that the present conditions of 
 
 Prices. ^he wor ^i n g classes is much better than it was a century 
 
 ago. For this improvement craft unionism is entitled to 
 take the chief credit. But is not so certain that Australian 
 workers, as a whole, are as well off as they were at the 
 foundation of the Commonwealth, in spite of the mass of 
 industrial legislation which has been passed since, and in 
 spite of the fact that Labour Governments have been in 
 office for long periods. Wages are higher, certainly, and 
 working conditions have been much improved ; but huge 
 combinations of capitalists have been able to force up the 
 cost of living more quickly than legislation has increased
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 47 
 
 wages. The problem of the day, from the workers' and 
 consumers' point of view, is how to combat that tendency. 
 The rate of wages has increased 39 per cent., but the cost 
 of living has gone up 50 per cent. It was, perhaps, natural 
 that Labour organizations, helped on by disappointed 
 agitators, should look for new methods of restoring the 
 balance among them the more effective consolidation of 
 the workers. "Big Unionism," said one of the propa- 
 gandists, "is necessary." \Ye approve that opinion; but 
 big unionism does not, by any means, confine us to the 
 One Big Union scheme, which is likely to be a very ex- 
 clusive affair in spite of its title. The workers want the 
 support of all unionists, and of twice as many more people 
 outside the unions. 
 
 \Yhy did Labour fail to attain its ideals? It is easy to Why Did 
 blame the politicians, but we are faced with a very awkard abottr 
 answer. In 1906 there were 175,529 trade unionists in 
 Australia; in 1917 there were 564,187. But in 1906 Labour 
 was in the ascendant in the Federal Parliament, and in five 
 out of six States; in 1917 it had lost all but the State of 
 Queensland. The leaders of twelve years ago held Aus- 
 tralia with one-third of the forces which are enrolled in 
 trade unions to-day. The war cannot be altogether blamed, 
 for there were signs of trouble before the war broke out. 
 The Sydney Labour Council, which sponsored this new 
 scheme of organization, is itself shorn of many influential 
 unions, to which it is sending out S.O.S. signals to return. 
 Generals who fail are usually cashiered. Can we, there- 
 fore, continue to trust the sagacity and knowledge of those 
 leaders who failed to hold the line, or should we blame 
 them for the failure? We believe we should. They did 
 not realize that organized Labour represented not more 
 than 8 per cent, of the population ; they ran their movement 
 as if the only persons concerned in the Labour policy were 
 the industrial workers of Sydney.
 
 48 The One Big Union 
 
 The cause of the labour rift will be found in the rise of 
 the so-called "industrial section" of the Labour party, five 
 or six years ago. This section antagonized, not only the 
 unionists who are not in sympathy with extreme revolution- 
 ary policy, but the large body of unorganized electors who 
 support Labour representatives in Parliament. The 
 primary producers exceed in number the industrial popu- 
 lation by four per cent. ; and proprietors of industries who 
 do not employ assistants are a body quite half as large as 
 the whole strength of unionism. Time and again the writer 
 has been asked in Country centres why the Labour Party 
 will not give reasonable consideration to a broad Country 
 policy. These are the factors that lost the Labour Party 
 its control of the country; and, to complete the debacle, 
 these are the weak points which the I.W.W. leaven seized 
 upon and accentuated. Labour leaders, including those 
 who are now masquerading as "Nationalists," must bear 
 full responsibility for this. There were able men among 
 them who lacked the courage to tackle the foreign poison, 
 every trace of which must be driven out of the Labour 
 Party before it will get the confidence of the people again. 
 The Bad It is not true that Labour has made a fair trial of 
 
 political methods. It is less than 20 years since the first 
 Labour Government took office, and the movement had to 
 sober after the first intoxication of power. What great 
 movement has ever attained its ideals in one generation? 
 In every human organization we must have failures ; by 
 them we rise to greater things. The generation which is 
 growing up with a knowledge that every schoolboy has an 
 equal chance is the generation that will achieve democratic 
 ideals. The rapid success of Labour at the polls was its 
 ruin. A body of men unaccustomed to the advantages of 
 power had power suddenly thrust upon them. Men who 
 had to work hard found that comrades, not more qualified 
 than themselves to govern the country, were lifted into
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 49 
 
 Parliament and into the Cabinet. The Labour Leagues 
 became at once centres of intrigue for selection, groups 
 of head-hunters scoured the lanes and by-ways, and the 
 dead were mingled with the gaoled in selection ballots. 
 Men who were not prepared to submit to these orgies drew 
 back in disgust, and the unfit man was chosen to represent 
 Labour in Parliament, when he did not fall over the balcony. 
 Labour missed a big chance of instituting a great democratic 
 reform. If it had made -a rule that no person was eligible 
 for selection until he had passed an examination in general 
 and social education, it would have earned the esteem not 
 only of its followers, but of other political parties which 
 are no better in this respect than itself. The inevitable 
 happened. Men who were not fit to rule succumbed to the 
 temptations of the political game, and many a Labour 
 supporter was disheartened at the reckless management of 
 the party, except, perhaps, in Queensland. Then came the 
 conscription fight, and the wreck of Parliamentary Labour 
 through the mad ambition of Mr. Hughes. 
 
 In Britain Labour has never obtained any real influence British 
 in politics, though, no doubt, it will become powerful under Ex P erience - 
 the new franchise. Yet even there advanced Labour men 
 lend no countenance to direct action. A Queensland 
 Labour writer thinks W. W. Craik's History of the Modern 
 British Working Class Movement a sterling contribution to 
 Labour literature. We agree with him. Mr. Craik is a 
 keen and consistent advocate of Industrial Unionism, which 
 he never confounds with Syndicalism or industrial owner- 
 ship. He says that the fundamental error of the Syndi- 
 calists consists in rejecting the political consequences which 
 the building up of a powerful industrial organization in- 
 volves. It is' one thing to get a clique into a workshop and 
 call it a shop committee, and quite another to avoid friction 
 between it and the workers. He sums up by saying (page 
 93). "Instead of trying to accomplish unity at the apex,
 
 So The One Big Union 
 
 without regard to the divisions at the base, instead of trying 
 to realize 'One Big Union' of the workers as a class directly, 
 industrial unionists have come to direct their practical 
 efforts towards securing more unity at the bottom, towards 
 unifying the workers within each industry as a necessary 
 prelude to the unification of the workers as a class. The 
 Triple Alliance already foreshadows future developments 
 towards working class unity." When we take into account 
 the standing of British Trade Unionism in the estimation 
 of the community and the Government, and compare it with 
 the attitude of Government and people towards the I.W.W., 
 we cannot have even a momentary doubt which is the better 
 model to copy. 
 Education the Our present social system is bad, but it is not bankrupt. 
 
 Solution. T A 1- i r i r 
 
 in Australia it is much further from bankruptcy than in 
 European countries, or even than in England and America. 
 Australia has not created, or imported, an immense popu- 
 lation of unenfranchised foreigners who have been bred in 
 semi-slavery ; nor has it developed those huge sweated in- 
 dustries which form cities in America. Unlike all other 
 countries, we have the ballot box at every adult's hand. 
 The proper solution of the difficulty for us lies in social 
 education. We should put Australia first, instead of 
 Capitalism or Industrialism. 
 
 We must not look at progress as merely a material con- 
 ception to be estimated in pounds, shillings and pence. The 
 love of wealth and luxury which accompanies unrestricted 
 materialism is ruinous alike to society and to the individual. 
 The materialistic view of progress is at the root of three 
 great fallacies. The first is, that national or individual 
 wealth is synonymous with success; the second, that 
 Capitalism is necessarily robbery; the third, arising out of 
 the second, is that destitution is incurable except by revo- 
 lution. The confutation of these fallacies lies in the 
 province of education : it must be effected by awakening the
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 51 
 
 social conscience, teaching the solidarity of society, and 
 uprooting class-consciousness in practice as well as theory. 
 If national education had an adequate spiritual side, these 
 errors would be corrected. 
 
 It is this wrong education that leads workers into the .The Two 
 gravest economic error of Syndicalism belief that the com- 
 munity is divided into two classes, the capitalists who own 
 everything and produce nothing, and the workers who own 
 nothing and produce everything, and that between these two 
 classes there is irreconcilable opposition. It is not true 
 that these two classes form the whole community. Even if 
 Labour were not restricted to wage-earners, as the One Big 
 Union would confine it, there is a third class greater than 
 both of them put together the middle class, which includes 
 professional people, farmers, shopkeepers, tradespeople, 
 and even workers who own property. Moreover the vital 
 fact is overlooked that all the three classes are also con- 
 sumers, and their natural wants must be attended to daily. 
 
 Nor is it true that capital produces nothing and labour 
 everything. The industrialist overstates his case when he 
 claims a right to the whole produce of his work. For he 
 does not create all wealth. He requires, for one thing, raw 
 material upon which to use his labour, and surely raw 
 material has value, and is wealth. Moreover he requires 
 the protection of society, in order that his work may be 
 carried on, peacefully and regularly. To give him all the 
 product would not do away with injustice. If the miners 
 owned the mine in which they worked, and the Queensland 
 butcher the whole proceeds of the animal he killed, ine- 
 qualities would still persist, for all labour is not equally 
 remunerative. Again, if the joint workers in an industry 
 owned the whole product of their work, they would 
 naturally have the right to fix prices to suit themselves. 
 We should then be merely substituting the Capitalism of 
 miners, or of butchers, for the present system which would
 
 52 The One Big Union 
 
 be of advantage not to the rest of the community, who are 
 consumers. The objective of the British Independent 
 Labour Party, "national ownership of industry, with con- 
 trol by the workers" seems to us capable of leading to a 
 more equitable solution of the problem, and one which will 
 prevent exploitation both of the worker and of the 
 consumer. 
 
 "The right of Labour to a life of comfort and self- 
 expression," says Mr. Cole, "is quite independent of whether 
 it creates wealth or not." It depends on the fact that the 
 worker is a human being, with a soul to be saved. If we 
 deny that, we deny the right of living to doctors, teachers, 
 priests, philosophers, and all others who help to make the 
 world habitable, but do not add to its material wealth. The 
 actual worker is entitled to the fullest possible share in 
 the control of the conditions under which he works. But 
 he must call in the consumer to help him in balancing living 
 conditions ; and the consumer can only act through Parlia- 
 ment, which represents him. 
 
 The Three Three methods of equalizing social conditions have either 
 
 Systems, been tried in modern times or have attracted considerable 
 
 attention. Trie first is the capitalistic system, under which 
 we suffer at present. The second is, management by the 
 consumers through the State a method generally called 
 Socialism, or Collectivism. The third, management in the 
 interest of the producers, we have been considering as 
 Industrialism. It is generally admitted that the first 
 method, unrestricted Capitalism has failed. It is proved to 
 be cruel, unjust, and unsocial. Where the One Big Union 
 threw a brick at it. Pope Leo assailed it with a salvo of 
 artillery. But it is strongly entrenched, and can only be 
 ejected from its supremacy by thorough organization, and 
 the solidarity of workers and- consumers. The socialistic 
 system has lost its attraction for the worker. It is just 
 as much in the interest of the consumer as the present
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 53 
 
 system is in the interest of the Capitalist. The Socialist 
 State would be the servile State. The worker would be 
 no better off as an employee (and a conscripted one at 
 that) under a Government Department, than he is under 
 a huge trust. That brings us to the third system. 
 
 \Ve have argued that industrial ownership \vould be as Three Factors 
 unjust to the community as capitalistic ownership, or as are -* ecessar y- 
 consumers' ownership. The three factors must be com- 
 bined. There is only one real Big Union, and that is 
 humanity. Continents and nations are now but parts of a 
 wonderfully intricate system of production, distribution 
 and exchange, and humanity can only perform its functions 
 successfully if it aims at unity and not strife. The quarrel 
 between capital and labour has been likened to a quarrel 
 between the two blades of a pair of scissors. If they hack 
 notches out of each other, the chief result is to impair the 
 cutting capacity of both. A store of capital is required 
 to keep organized industry going; for, if everybody spent 
 all his income as he receives it, only articles for daily con- 
 sumption would be purchased. Even under socialism or 
 syndicalism a store of capital foodstuffs, clothing, building 
 materials, machinery, and so forth must be collected. 
 Otherwise we should be mere nomads, living in caves, and 
 spending our days in foraging for meals. It is capital 
 that enables the worker to spend days, months, and years, 
 on a big job. and to regulate his life in orderly fashion. 
 This capital may be held by individuals, by joint stock 
 companies, by the State, or by syndicalist combinations of 
 workers ; but it should be used only for the general good, 
 not for the advantage of one class. Capital is no person's 
 exclusive property; it is a trust for the benefit of all. And 
 that is the point we must always keep before us when we 
 *plan to adjust living conditions. 
 
 Perhaps we shall best realize that capital is a public trust Look to the 
 by considering first the case of land. Land is the third Land -
 
 54 
 
 The One Big Union 
 
 great factor in production, but the One Big Union is 
 strangely silent about it. Those who would rule the world 
 from a spot in the centre of Trautmann's circle, forget the 
 . greater part of the community, who obtain their living 
 directly from the land, and who for the most part are not 
 wage- earners. Though they are in their own way capital- 
 ists, they form no part of what the industrialist includes 
 in the term Capitalism. By neglecting for a moment the 
 highly capitalized, quantitative production of machine-made 
 goods, in order to examine the land system, we shall find 
 help in the solution of the labour problem. There we can 
 study "production for use," which is a watchword of in- 
 dustrialism ; and there we can see how the worker may 
 realize not only the full value of his product, but the con- 
 trol of his labour as well. 
 
 Not that our land system is perfect far from it. But 
 we can plainly perceive its defects and devise remedies. 
 The defects of our land system are the power of landowners 
 to hold large tracts of country for. speculation; the ex- 
 clusion of workers from unused land ; and excessive gains 
 through these evils. Most errors in land legislation arise 
 from the wrong conception of man's title to land. For 
 this we have to blame the Roman law, which held that the 
 owner had an unrestricted right to deal with his land as 
 he thought fit. He could transfer or transmit, use, abuse, 
 or not use at all. take all the produce, or let the land to 
 any person for any period, purpose or rent he chose. This 
 principle was extended by the Code Napoleon to all kinds 
 of ownerslr p ; and thus has grown up the bad principle, 
 the root of all our social evils, that not only the landlord, 
 but the capitalist, has a right "to do what he likes with his 
 own." 
 
 Principles of This is altogether contrary to tlie Christian concept, 
 
 Ownership which regards wealth or property as a trust given to man 
 
 for his use. No person has the right to reserve for himself
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 55 
 
 more land than he can put to use, or to hold his land idle 
 while any of his fellow citizens need it. In the thirteenth 
 century, Pope Clement IV ruled that strangers could 
 occupy and use one-third of an estate which the proprietor 
 refused, or failed, to cultivate himself. In the days before 
 landlords were allowed to enclose and keep idle large tracts 
 of cultivable land in Britain, it \vas no uncommon thing 
 for a peasant to run his furrow, without asking permission, 
 into any monastery land which was not in use, and to draw 
 a crop from it. The owner was entitled to a fair rent 
 charge. If we put these principles into practice, not only 
 in our agricultural areas, but in urban and city lands, we 
 should compel owners by a super-tax to put idle land to 
 its proper use, and so prevent them from holding it for 
 speculative purposes. The person who holds up land in 
 city and country, and prevents the natural development of 
 a district until it is made valuable by surrounding owners, 
 is a slacker and should be discouraged. Thus from the 
 Christian point of view land is a trust; and similarly from 
 the same point of view, capital is a trust. 
 
 The problem of profits can also be illustrated from the 
 land, because the division of returns from land is compara- 
 tively simple. The first charge is economic rent; then 
 comes interest on the capital employed in working the 
 land. If the capital belongs to the tenant, he is entitled to 
 the interest. The unearned increment, which is made by 
 the community, should belong to the community. Minerals 
 such as coal, oil. etc., should belong to the community, after 
 full allowance is made for the cost of any enterprise which 
 leads to their discovery or development. By analogy we 
 may ascertain the true limits of private ownership, and the 
 proportion in which returns should be divided between 
 capital and labour. Would it not be possible to apply 
 agricultural ideas of organization to our industrial system? 
 The advantages, especially in the harmonious combination
 
 The One Big Union 
 
 The Christian 
 Solution. 
 
 The Guild 
 Scheme. 
 
 of various factors in production, would make this far 
 preferable to any organization built on the class-war theory. 
 Reforms not based on moral truth must fail. It is not 
 true that Christian morality was framed, or can be diverted, 
 to bolster up Capitalism. Whether capitalists or workers, 
 those who in practice reject the Ten Commandants, 
 are offenders against Christianity. The remedy is to 
 spiritualize public opinion; and we must begin with educa- 
 tion. If the teacher and the writer hold up material pro- 
 gress and trade efficiency as the ends of national greatness, 
 then the evils which follow those false ideals will certainly 
 continue to plague us. It is strange to find men steeped 
 in modern thought, when they are worried by the fast 
 growing class-hatred, looking wistfully back to the or- 
 ganization of mediaeval craft guilds, which certainly did 
 assure independence to the worker ; and frequently these 
 thinkers are compelled by the pressure of public opinion, 
 which has been formed by the long falsification of history, 
 to apologize for praising anything "mediaeval," and to 
 protest that they do not suggest anything like a return to 
 those benighted days. 
 
 Let us note a few of the provisions which regulated the 
 workers' lives when England was "merrie England," and 
 the barons were, at least, not coal barons. Many of the 
 evils of modern capitalism are caused by the. efforts of un- 
 scrupulous men to corner materials and trade. The Guild 
 remedy was to ration materials, arid heavy penalties were 
 inflicted on master craftsmen who obtained unfair advan- 
 tage. It is interesting to note that when at the outbreak 
 of the great war. Capitalism failed to answer the demands 
 of Government, there was a return to this "mediaeval" 
 method ; and the big industrialists did not like it, though 
 they had to submit to it. The Guild Council undertook food 
 inspection, and placed its hall-mark on all classes of pro- 
 ducts to guarantee their quality. No merchant was allowed
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 57 
 
 to forestall the market in wine or wheat; on the contrary, 
 he was compelled to share a shipment with his fellow 
 merchants, and was not allowed to charge them an increase 
 on cost price. Not only did the Guild guarantee the quality 
 of products, but the Guild Council of each industry fixed 
 the selling price. The Guilds also had "sumptuary" laws 
 directed against luxury. 
 
 A vast amount of wit has been directed against these 
 laws up to the beginning of this century; but to-day we 
 have some of the brightest thinkers in England harking 
 back to the Guild regulations, and proposing adaptations 
 which would probably have been brought about by evolu- 
 tion, if the Guilds had continued during the industrial 
 development. The financial editor of The Times, Mr. 
 Hartley Withers, in one of his fine books, points out that 
 the evils of over-production and under-production are 
 chiefly brought about by production for luxury and not 
 for use. Many writers declare that, if profiteering were 
 prevented, the chief motive of anarchism would be des- 
 troyed. "Fixing prices," says Mr. A. J. Penty, "is the 
 problem of the future," and the same writer substantiates 
 with much evidence a claim that the degradation of the 
 workers is very materially brought about by the abandon- 
 ment of craftsmanship for mere quantitative production, 
 which causes the substitution of unskilled for skilled labour. 
 We even find such an extremist as Prince Kropotkin stating 
 that "most of what the Socialists aim at existed in the 
 mediaeval city." 
 
 Therefore a strong movement (doctrinaire, no doubt) is Modern 
 making progress in England for the government of industry (jmlds - 
 by National Guilds, the Guild in this case being the nation- 
 wide industrial union. Some writers, .who appreciate the 
 value of a catchword, prefer to call it "Guild Socialism," 
 as it relies on the co-operation of the State, representing 
 the consumers. In this connection it is interesting to learn
 
 58 The One Big Union 
 
 from the New Age of January 9, 1919, that we shall be 
 able to study the National Guild in action immediately. 
 The Italian Federation of Labour is a well organized body 
 which goes to work in a business-like way. It proposes, 
 for instance, to manage the cultivation of land and the 
 carrying out of public works by co-operative societies of 
 workers. But the project to which we call attention is 
 more significant still. It appears that the Allies are lending 
 the Italian Government a number of merchant ships, to help 
 in reorganizing their trade. The Italian National Federa- 
 tion of Seamen, a highly organized body, immediately 
 applied to the Reconstruction Committee to have some of 
 these ships handed over to them, and placed under their 
 management. The Committee approved the scheme; and 
 the Premier notified the Seamen that, as soon as they 
 formed a legally constituted co-operative Society, the 
 Minister of Transport would allot them the ships they were 
 prepared to manage. The Society was formed in Sep- 
 tember, and the Minister notified. It is quite likely that 
 the scheme is at work now. There we have the One Big 
 Union, minus class-war and sabotage. 
 
 Co-operation. There is no need to confine ourselves to the Italian Sea- 
 men in order to see the effects of constructive methods. 
 The wonderfully successful systems of agricultural co- 
 operation in Ireland, Belgium, Holland and Italy, and the 
 long-existing consumers' co-operative schemes in England 
 lead us to believe that, if the promoters of class-war propa- 
 ganda would give up their foolish get-rich-quick confidence 
 schemes, and devote their "great intelligence and god-like 
 ability" to devising a system of industrial co-operation, 
 they would create in their followers at each step a greater 
 sense of responsibility, a more settled self-reliance, a 
 stronger will to win than ever came from revolutionary 
 anarchism. There is no nobler man than the man who 
 has risen to higher things by honest effort ; and there is no
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 59 
 
 warrant in all history for the belief that ascendancy gained 
 by passion and plunder ever attained the stability necessary 
 for success. 
 
 It may be objected that these methods are slow. All the True Progress 
 better; no reform worthy of the name was ever brought ts ow ' 
 about in a hurry. Much was expected from the French 
 Revolution; but many of our social troubles, among them 
 the irresponsibility of Capitalism, are fruits of the hasty 
 principles then accepted. Noble ideals were expressed by 
 the founders of American Independence; but it was not 
 stabilized until its hasty generalizations were tried in the 
 fire by the War of Secession. Foolish people are now 
 congratulating parties who seem to have the upper hand 
 for the moment in Russia ; but the man- who expects any 
 reasonable order from the welter in which Europe is now 
 plunged is very sanguine indeed. 
 
 What is needed in Australia is to strengthen the trade The Needs of 
 unions, not only in membership, but also in organization. ra ia " 
 
 Firmness and courage in the elected officers is a necessity. 
 All the rights of unions should be insisted on refusal to 
 work with non-unionists, or to handle non-union material; 
 annual agreements with the employers, all falling due on 
 the one day, for every precaution should be used against 
 the neutralizing of agreements by excessive price-raising. 
 Since it is found that an appreciable number of politicians 
 fail to put energy into their work, or are failures under 
 trial, shorter parliaments might be advantageous. The 
 cost of an extra election would be more than made up by 
 the increased responsibility of members towards expendi- 
 ture. Workers should persistently agitate for greater con- 
 trol of 'their industries', for, as we have shown, capital must 
 be looked upon as a' public trust.. They should carefully 
 avoid specious schemes of profit-sharing, and fallacious 
 co-operative proposals not accompanied by an adequate 
 voice in the management. The danger is that these schemes
 
 60 The One Big Union 
 
 may not only weaken unionism, but may also make the 
 workers joint conspirators with the capitalists in exploiting 
 consumers. The biggest problem from the labour or- 
 ganizers' point of view is the unskilled worker. As the 
 industrial union is developed, this labour should as far as 
 possible be bound up with the union; and every effort 
 should be made to eliminate nnskilfulness by educating the 
 public to prefer quality in production to quantity. There 
 is not the slightest doubt that this can be done. Take, for 
 example, the different views of the English and the Aus- 
 tralian worker on slop-made clothing. The ready-made 
 article is the rule in England ; it is still the exception in 
 Australia, though a big effort is now being made to force 
 the quantitative, cheap, and shoddy article on the workers. 
 This discrimination should be applied to furniture, to 
 buildings, and to everything that goes to form the inde- 
 pendent and manly character of the working man. 
 
 What the As a beginning, trade unions should demand that all 
 
 Unions . .. ... .... . . 
 
 Should Do, public activities concerned with industry or education be 
 
 taken out of the hands of politicians and civil servants, and 
 placed under boards on which the workers are represented. 
 These representatives should be chosen, not by Ministers, 
 but by those whom they represent. The Trade Unions 
 should be represented on a Council of Education in order 
 that civic responsibility should be impressed upon a dry-as- 
 dust Department. Similarly the Railway Commission, the 
 Public Works Commission, and the headquarters of the 
 Lands and Mining Administrations should contain men 
 directly representing labour, in order that the interests of 
 the workers may not be overlooked by political place- 
 hunters. Such practical reform would do more for the 
 emancipation of the workers, than all the propagandists of 
 the One Big Union even if they spent their lives in con- 
 clave writing, as their General Secretary puts it, 
 "declarations of independence that are rekindling in the
 
 Suggestions for Reconstruction 61 
 
 hearts of millions, the smouldering embers of human 
 liberty : yea, more, striking from the limbs of the Australian 
 workmen the chains and shackles of corporate bondage." 
 
 One other aspect of this visionary scheme strikes us. 
 We have heard advocates of the One Big Union say that 
 the ideal is good, even if the founders are weak. "Let us 
 form the Big Union," they say, "and we shall soon find the 
 men to manage it." There are two answers to that. The 
 One Big Union scheme is bad, because it is on the wrong 
 track. Ownership of the works by the workers is not only 
 unsound economically, as we have shown, but places the 
 One Big Union in direct opposition to the rest of the 
 community, without whose support it cannot succeed. 
 Secondly, the chief argument of the founders is that all 
 other Labour men are wrong, and they are the sole pro- 
 prietors of the genuine article. They say that their plan is 
 to build from the bottom up ; but they are trying to build 
 from the roof down. The workers have the foundations 
 ready at hand, in the Trade LTnions. Let them build on 
 that base, and not be tempted to try 'Yankee imitations. 
 When American Labour conditions are as good as ours, 
 it will be time enough for us to copy their methods and 
 then onlv their successful methods.
 
 BOOKS WHICH THROW LIGHT ON 
 SYNDICALISM. 
 
 The following books and pamphlets have been con- 
 sulted in the preparation of this inquiry : 
 
 Trautmann (W. E.) One Great Union. 
 
 Trautmann (W. E.) Why Strikes are Lost. 
 
 Lane (Ernest H.) The One Big Union and Reconstruction. 
 
 John O'Rockie The Coming Slavery and the Future of the 
 
 Workers. 
 
 Anderson (Norman C.) The One Big Union for Australia. 
 Dodds (A. D.) How One Big Union Works. 
 Workers' International Industrial Union, Revolutionary Industrial 
 
 Unionism. 
 Craik (Will. W.) Outlines of the History of the British Working- 
 
 Class Movement. 
 
 Sorel (Georges) Reflections sur la Violence. 
 Laregle (H. de) La Confederation General du Travail. 
 Levine (L.) Syndicalism in France. 
 Haywood and Bohn Industrial Socialism. 
 Cole (G. D. H.) The World of Labor. 
 Cole (G. D. H.) Self-Government in Industry. 
 Macdonald (Ramsay) Syndicalism. 
 Macdonald (Ramsay) Social Unrest. 
 Snowden (Philip) Socialism and Syndicalism. 
 Mann (Tom) From Single-Tax to Syndicalism. 
 Penty (A. J.) Old Worlds for New. 
 
 Bechhofer and Reckitt The Meaning of National Guilds. 
 Hobson and Orage National Guilds. 
 
 Webb (Sidney and Beatrice) History of Trade Unionism. 
 Webb (Sidney and Beatrice) Industrial Democracy. 
 Husslein (Joseph, S.J.) The World Problem, Capital, Labour and 
 
 the Church. 
 
 Belloc (Hilaire) History of England, since 1688. 
 Belloc (Hilaire) The Servile State. 
 Ryan (John A., D.D.) Distributive Justice. 
 Mann, Sievers, and Cox The Real Democracy. 
 Withers (Hartley) Waste. 
 
 W. C. Penfold & Co. Ltd., Printers, 183 Pitt Street, Sydney.
 
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 An Irish Heart: Poems. By David McKee Wright. With 
 
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 ne be reprinted. 
 
 ART IN AUSTRALIA. No. 6. 7/6 
 
 The earlier issues of "Art in Australia" ran out of print within a week of 
 publication. No. 1 now fetches from 3 3s. upwards. A bookseller informs us 
 that he sold Nos. 1, 2, and 3 recently for 6 G*. [Ready in June.