as the only
country that had for years adopted a policy of justice according to law
for both workers and employers, and from the syndicalist's point of view
it was therefore the only country that seriously attacked their own policy
by showing that it was unnecessary. In the second place New Zealand was
the only country with a population of British origin that could be dealt
with practically by itself. With the aid of an Australian boycott it
seemed as if her people must be helpless in the hands of the Federation.
The result proved to be not only the defeat of the principle of lawless
syndicalism, but the destruction of the industrial association that
represented it in the country. No compromise was accepted, and except it
may be in name, no Union attached to the Federation of Labor remains at
work. The question, of course, suggests itself: What was the reason? Minor
reasons may be found, no doubt, to account for failure where success was
so confidently expected; but there can be little doubt that the real cause
is the policy pursued by the Legislature and people of New Zealand for the
last twenty years. Syndicalism, like all plans for the over turn, or
reform, as their advocates would perhaps prefer to call it, of existing
institutions, depends for success on the existence of wrongs by which part
of the people is impoverished, while another, and very small part, has
more than enough. The workers of our own race, at any rate, have enough
common-sense to understand, at least when they are not hysterically
excited, that imaginary wrongs are not a sufficient reason for great
sacrifices. New Zealand's legislation has not created an ideal society, it
is true; but for twenty years it has proceeded step by step in the
direction of righting the wrongs of the past, and giving opportunity to
that part of its people that needed it most, on the single condition that
they would use it, and respect the rights of others. To such a people,
increasing steadily, year by year, in all that makes for well-being, the
wild denunciations, and if possible wilder promises, of paid agitators can
have little attraction. It may be possible by careful generalship to stir
a small section of such a people to the hysterical excitement of an
industrial war, but the mass of the people would be certain to resent it,
and the movement will be doomed to a speedy collapse.

Other countries have been less enlightened and less fortunate than New
Zealand in their