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It is clear that the forces of capitalism are | bent on the prosecution of their conspiracy to | destroy the Trades Unions of Australia. Any and | every means likely to detach either unions or | unionists from their affiliation with and to each | other, is being eagerly seized and worked to its | last ounce.

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Letters have been circulated throughout the | Commonwealth with a view to the formation of | separate industrial Councils to those now in | existence. It is obvious that the formation of | such other and additional councils to those already | established cannot but have the effect of exposing | the workers to the dangers inherently associated | with division in the ranks.

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It is a remarkable thing that in every | crisis, - without exception | - the mind of the capitalist runs | to the formation of new unions, new councils, new | leagues, new anything so that the rank and file of | the workers' movement may be seduced from their | fidelity to Labor. And it is a further remarkable | fact that each bogus union or bogus council, as the | case may be, is always given vast space in the | plutocratic press and extolled and boosted to the | sky by men who, whatever else they may be, are | notorious opponents of every effort to lift up | wages and conditions.

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The truth is that the only thing the plutocracy | really fear is a well organised army of labor. | Political campaigns come and go. Changes take | place in the laws or they do not. But it is the | great fact of unionism which, in the last analysis, | determines the attitude the employers shall exhibit | towards conditions on the job. And it is what | happens on the job that decides the standard of | living for the workers and their families.

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Irrespective of what takes place in Parliament, | a militant, united, and stiff-backed fact of | unionism can stand unshiftable between the | capitalists and the realisation of their purpose. | To weaken unionism, to reduce it to a mere book in | which names are entered, to make it a thing of rags | and patches has ever been the deadly aim of the | friends of sweated-industry and working-class | coercion.

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And they want to smash Unionism now more than | ever because if it should remain powerful and | undivided their great victory at the polls will not | be sufficient for the accomplishment of their | reactionary aims. Big wage-lowering movements | cannot be effected in any industry where Unionism | remains a power. Black or Asiatic labor cannot be | successfully introduced in the occupations where | unionism as a great social force survives. Neither | can the substitution of women for men at reduced | wages be extensively practised unless unionism is | down and out. Therefore, the demoralisation of | unionism in the mines, fields, and factories is an | inseparable part of the political strategy which | succeeded on May 5.

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That is why the bogus Labor Solidarity and other | institutions hatched in the incubator of capitalist | cheques are now called on to tackle the industrial | wing of our movement. Upon them devolves the task | of forming illegitimate councils and associations | which will serve the double purpose of detaching | unions from the ALF and grafting them on to a | branch agency of the Employers' Federation. It is | the old game. There cannot be advanced one single | claim for its entertainment. It only means that in | proportion as it succeeds, Labor shall weaken and | capitalism strengthen. It means that the | potentialities of working-class mischief are | multiplied and that general chaos must inevitably | overtake the workers' movement.

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The other day one of the advocates of seccession | talked about arbitration. Surely it must be | apparent that whether we seek legal or other means | for the redress of grievances, unity is | imperatively the condition of our success. If it | is proper for some unions to affiliate with the ALF | and for others to affiliate with a nondescript | council of doubtful origin and obscure purpose, it | is proper for one unionist in a given industry to | join one union and another to join a different | union. Our experience of the bogus unions, of the | associations and councils formed outside the | properly constituted Federation of unionism leaves | us no alternative, but to describe them as leprous | menaces to the health and vitality of the | movement.

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Their obvious insincerity is stamped upon | everything they do. They send out a circular | protesting against unions being involved in a | political programme, and declaring politics should | not be a feature of trades union policy, in the | same breath that they declare for a political | co-partnership with organisations such as the Liberal | League, the Farmers, and Settlers' Association, the | national Federation, and a number of other bodies | that have no industrial basis whatever. If the | National Labor Party considers unions should secede | from the ALF because the ALF deals with the | political constitution and policy of the movement | of Labor how does it justify requesting them to | associate with the conglomeration of political | contradictions it is itself part of.

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But the world knows if the war ends before | unionism has been brought to heel, the close of the | great conflict will mean the end of the rule of | anti-democratic authority. The post-war problem so | far as the plutocracy is concerned is to be a | problem of retaining their grip over the wealth- | production. They realise that popular | concentration on the ebb and flow of battle in | Europe has left them free to pirate the earth. But | the reckoning will be demanded. The burden of the | war-debt is not going to be borne by those who have | suffered and striven, it will have to be carried by | the commercial and financial shylocks who during | the war have waxed fat and rich. Therefore the | class struggle supervening on the close of the | international holocaust already finds them | preparing with definite attacks on unionism in | each country.

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We put it that war or peace, the unity of the | workers is the sole hope of the world. Outside of | the capacity of trades unionism to fight for and | preserve the economic security of the men and women | who eat bread in the sweat of their brow there is | nothing. It is true that relentless war stalks red | through the civilisation of Europe; it is true that | the flower of our race, and of the races of the | world, is being mowed like chaff before the sickle | of death; but it is also true that in the midst of | it the great god of profit grinds the faces of the | poor, that women's hearts are not only desolate for | the men warring on the bloody fields of ruin, but | are cold because the coal lords shove up the price | of fuel beyond their power to purchase. It is | true, eternally and damnably true, that in the | greatest crisis of the world the men who fatten and | add to their already vast gains, are the men who in | peace were busily robbing the armies of the poor. | The rich are still rich; the poor are, however, | much poorer.

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And in this hour of working-class extremity the | men who come with tainted hands to further delude | the workers and destroy the last refuge left them | are but the emissaries of the enemy. Their call to | division and detachment is but a syren song luring | to destruction. Unity now more than ever, unity | now stronger than ever; unity now a creed where it | was but a phrase, a living gospel where it was a | half-felt call - that alone will be | our salvation to-morrow.

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