Pioneer

T. C. Morris in Liverpool., DEMAND FOR El A WEEK INCREASE. An enthusiastic and largely-attended meeting of railway workers in the Liverpool and Birken- head area, held in St. Martin's Hall, on Sunday, unanimously supported the demand put forward by the rank and file conference in London last month for a further increase in wages of JB1 per week. Mr. Robert Watson, vice-chairman of the Liverpool Vigilance Committee, presided. The principal speaker waa Mr. T. C. Morris, of South Wales, a member of the Executive Com- mittee of the National Union of Railwaymen, who said that, while he supported the JE1 a week increase, he would go for £ 1 a dpy-(applause)- not simply the half-loaf, but geo for the bake- house. The demand might mean a real test of strength, even a threat at strike or stoppage, and while it might be regarded as treason in the eyes of the law, after all their betters had not hesitated to hold up the pistol to the State if ihe latter dared to interfere with the sacred right of profiteering. Working-class liberties had been taken away, the very life had seen con- scripted, and where the was no mercy in life there should be none in regard to riches and wealth. (Applause.)

Tredegar Notes. Trades Council Activity. As a result of the action of the Tredegar Trades Council in investigating cases of in- creased rents under the Restriction of Rents Act, the cases which were reported by several tenants at the public meeting held recently, have been dealt with successfully, some owners paying up immediately on receipt of a letter from the Secretary pointing out the violation of Rents Act, and one owner paid up in court rather than appear before the Registrar. At last week's meeting of the Council it was decided to take proceedings at once against those who had seen fit to ignore the notification by the Council Secretary. Food Control Dissatisfaction. I The District Council having refused to accept the proposition of Sam Filer (Labour Represen- tative) to ask the present Food Control Com- mittee to resign owing to the dissatisfaction pre- vailing among the different workmens' organi- sations, m view of the fact that the Food Com- mittee is at present monopolised by the Chamber of Trade, it was decided to forward a further letter of protest to Lord Rhondda. Should this fail to have the desired effect, the Council de- cided to ask the Tredegar Miners' Emergency Committee to take joint action with the Trades Council in calling a public meeting to demand the resignation of the present Control Com- mitted. x

I Swansea Valley Notes. I J. M. Jones at Cwmtwrch. At Beulah Vestry, Owmtwrch, last Friday night, a splendidly attended meeting waa held un der the auspices of the local branch of the I.L.P. The speaker was the Rer. J. Morgan Jones, M.A., Merthyr, the most courageous ser- vant of the Prince of Peace in Wales at the' present time. The chair was taken by the Rev. M. Hughes, pastor of Beulah Chapel, who in hit i opening remarks expressed his belief in the necessity of holding these meetings to discuiis such important matters as would be dealt with that night. Mr. Jones gave an inspiring address on "Dyn ao aur" (Man and Gold). His arguments against the war and on behalf of Socialism were very convincing and were loudly applauded. It is! hoped that Mr. Jones will pay another Tiait to the valley in the near future. f Another Rev. Pacifist.. I The Rev. Herbert Morgan, M.A., Briptol, will I deliver a lecture at the above place this moftth (the 22nd I believe). Cwmtwrch is to be con- gratulated on securing such eminent speakers. II ndvstrial Objectors. The strike at Gwaun-eae-gurwen ia not yet settled, and, needless to say, the position Is getting very serious. A special conference of the Anthracite District is being called for to- morrow (Wednesday) at Swansea. I understand that last week the men at the Ammanford Col- lieries decided to "down tools." It appears that the G.C.G. trucks were being sent to these pits to be filled, but the Ammanford miners turned conscientious objectors" to this, and were not having any. Surely, this spirit should prevail throughout the whole coalfield. The men have been out for over eight weeks, and there is not a cent coming in to them. Is this a time to be idle ? They are not fighting for their own interests alone. They are fighting for a principle which concerns all miners. We have yet to learn the truth of the motto, An injury to one, is an injury to all." t Margaret Bondfield's Visit. I Miss Margaret Bondfield was the speaker at I I the Public Hall on Sunday afternoon. I The Conciliators. I understand that Mrs. McMillan and Mrs. Drummond visited Gwauncaegurwen on Monday to try and drum the miners back to work. I hope the' latter knew how to behave them- selves, as we knew how to behave when Mrs. Drummond and Mrs. Pankhurst came to thif valley in 1915 -So drum us and s-Pank us for striking in time of war. [Social Education. A Social Science class has been formed at Gwauncaegurwen. It is being held every Sun- day afternoon. The lectures are: Industrial History, Mr. D. R. Owen; Economies and logic, Mr. J. Dicks. A class has also been formed at CHydach. It is being held on Thursday evenings. I More War Aims Troubles. I The War Aims meetings at Abercrave and (Jwmtwreh on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings respectively did not go so smoothly as the con- veners would wish. Questions were abundant, and at the latter place Kelly, from Newcastle, who was one of the speakers, was compelled to apologise twice for making insulting statements concerning a wounded soldier. Macdonald and Snowden have all along known the feeling of the workers regarding the war, hence their, untiring effort-s to bring it to an end. When armchair patriots come from their firesides to try and rouse enthusiasm for a "fight to a finish 11 they discover with amazement how lacking in pa- triotism the people really are. When a small mob, composed of the hired scum of the towns, break up a peace meeting, long columns of lying and exaggerated reports appear in the press, which make Parliamentarians, etc., who are out of the "madding crowd," believe that Pacifists and those desiring an end to the war are a negligible quantity. But when the majority of an audience of 1,500 became hostile to a plat- form of "to the last drop of somebody else's, blood" speakers; when two or three O.O.s put questions on War Aims which these wizened- faced, played-out fossils failed to answer; when an ordinary C.O. openly challenged a War Aims, speaker (Sidney Robinson, M.P.) to a public deoate on War Aims; when the audience cheered Macdonald and Snowden, and lustily sings The Red Flag before leaving, as was the case at Ystradgynlais last week, not one single word ap- pears in the patriotic Press! No, it is not in the "national interest" to publish the above uncomfortable facts! No greater argument can be obtained for the workers to have their own Press. Those wishing to get the "Pioneer" in this district can get it weekly from Miss Williams, newsagent, Ynismudw.

DOWLAIS WORKERS' UNION AND I SPANISH REACTION. The Dowlais No. 1 Branch of the Workers' Union—with a membership of 1,600-has unani- mously passed the following resolution: "The Dowlais Branch of the Workers' Union protests against the shameless manner in which the Spanish Government has proceeded by shooting down defenceless strikers in the main streets, and demands the immediate release of all per- sons imprisoned as a sequel to the present un- rest.

The Miners' Next Step. DESPITE the vituperative hot air that has been poured upon the South Walee collier, by our local patriotic press, for his action at Monday's S. W .M.F. Conference ill mot alone rejecting the M.F.G.B. reoommendation that he should assist the oomb-out" in the mines, but also in carry- ing forward his opposition to that course to the extent of balloting the question of a down-tools policy in case of any attempt on the part of the authorities to apply the oomb-out" process to this field; the decision was one for which every informed person in South Wales-and superficial information of the spirit of the miner would have suffioed-must have been prepared, j The South Wale gminer has so often and so un- mistakably expressed himself as the enemy of Militarism and all that Militarism embraces in these days, that any misconception of his posi- tion can but be due to a refusal to face the facts he adduces, or an admitted inability to compre- hend the political outlook of Democracy that would be criminal in journalists who are, at the moment, answering his present logical continuity of policy with threats of propaganda and can- vassing; and sophistries regarding his disloyalty to the parent M.F.G.B. organisation. We do not think much of the patriotism that needs to be canvassed, but we shall welcome the can- vassing in the hope that the busybodies, who seek to convince the miner of his entire error in this matter, will be taught to look for the prime causes of this war a lot further back than August, 1914; will learn that platitudes about German inhumanity have no retolity outside their own subjective prejudices; and will feel that social science as comprehended by the mass of the miners, and comprehended continually in aiR ever increasing degree—is much more real as a basis of good governance and future interna- tional fraternity than the hotch-potch that he or she has found self-satisfying in politics. In order that the canvassers may the more clearly grasp the task they are undertaking it would be as well to restate the miners' views on the war, and follow that up with an examination of the sophistries that have been editorially preached since last Monday. The miner, as expressed in his trado organisation, cannot be divided from the Labour Party, and in South Wales he is actively attached to the advanced Socialist wing of that Party. In that position he is a vigorous exponent in peace times as in war time of the economic doctrine of a class war. For the pur- pose of expressing his force effectively in that war he is a trades unionist; his conception of trade union activity is in an aggressive attempt to win from his exploiter, the coal-owner, an ever-increasing percentage of the wealth he creates, with the ultimate goal of a complete capture of the industry, for the communal good. Out of this personal view of the normal economic relationships in his own surroundings he has been compelled to educate himself to a world-wide conception of the working-class struggle, and to go back to history in search of fundamentals, for the scientific induction of a theory of politics that will not be dependent upon the existence of an exploited and an exploiting class, or classes. That investigation has discovered ta him the universality of his condition under Capitalism, has shown him that the historic mis- sion of the worker the world over is one and in- divisible and has also proved to him that econo- mic causes mould political ideals, and produce the open and secret policies of Diplomacy and Statesmanship. He has seen how necessarily pacifism of the textile era in industry, has pro- duced the iron and steel age with its political evolution to Imperialistic-Jingoism. He iian clea-rly conceived the piracy of international trade and finance; has traced its utilisation of the means of Governmental pressure to smash its rivals in the struggle for markets and the protectorate of the backward lands of the earth for the enhancement of the wealth of it's own wealthy. And side by side with this negative criticism, he has builded a logical system of Socialistic government founded on amity and common interests national and international. With the oonstructive phase we have not the space to deal even sketchily as we have been able to deal with the negative criticism that we have mentioned above for the guidance of the canvassers that are to be. It would be utterly foolish and futile on the part of those canvassers to go to the miner with a long, prosy story that fails to face the economic criticism that we have outlined. How much more futile it will be to go to him and tell him that he is disloyal to the M.F.G.B. in taking up his attitude of hostility towards the military comb-out, or that he is the victim of young men who are using him for the purpose of "legislating themselves out of the Military Service Acts," we will now see. In practice the M.F .G.B. is an alliance of the Scot- tish, English and Welsh coalfields for the pur- pose of trade interests, and the S.W.M.F. has never surrendered its autonomous rights to an oligarchic centralised committee-for it does not believe in the vesting of all power in a cen- tralised body. When it has differed from the M.F.G.B., as it often has, its plea has been that its democratic constitution has been in conflict with the autocratic prejudices of unmandated, self-styled leaders; that its delegates have gone to conferences with mandates constitutionally given by mass meetings, whereas its opponents have never consulted the men whose votes they cast against the Sputh Wales proposals. In so far as this has been true of the past he refuses to submit to caucus ruling in matters on which he has been fully consulted; and justly refuses in matters such as this to be bound to a machine; alien to his spirit and views. In this apostacy he is justified by his conferences. And exactly the same reasoning applies to the delegation at his conferences. If the young men are the dele- gates it is by the votes and selection of their colleagues whether old or young, and it is as their representatives, instructed on all vital issues that they attend and vote. A delegate's age has no bearing on his attitude as a delegate. Just the same powers that make him a delegate equip him for defeating the wishes of his own executive on occasion. It is through his col- leagues in his home district or lodge that he admonishes the Executive, and teaches that body that it is not above its constituents, and that it must be amenable to those constituents on all things. That is the position. Whether it be faced by private interfering busybodies or Governmental inquiry it will have to be an- swered with reason and commonsense, and not with hysterical yells of "German Gold," "Paci- fist Corruption," and so on. People who are so foolish as to believe that a huge body of opinion, such as is represented hy the S.W.M.F., can be corrupted against its common feeling and com- monsense, have much to learn about mass psy- chology before they should be allowed even the publicity of a correspondenoo column, let alone of a leading article.

Political N otes. BY F. W. JOWETT, M.P. Pence ought to be very near, and it would be near if only the men who speak for the different belligerent nations would address themselves directly to the points in dispute. The German reply to the Pope's note makes three things quite plain, although the British press deceives the public by its daily misrepresentations of the real position. Germany accepts reduction of armaments. She also accepts the Pope's pro- posal of arbitration to prevent war in the future. Both those things—so overwhelmingly important if the coming peace is to be permanent—are j clear and beyond dispute. It is not on these pointe, however, that ,the press finds scope for, misrepresentation, but on the third, viz., Bel- gium. The 1)49,s 'tion w l g uin is that The position with regard to Belgium is that the German Government has officially declared, in reply to the Pope, its adherence- to the Reich- stag resolution which repudiated the desire of! acquiring territory by force. Belgium was wet directly referred to in the resolution, but as Bel- gium could only be retained by Germany in com- plete defiance of the resolution it follows that the German Government has pledged itself, officially, to evacuate Belgium and r as tore its in- dependence. =- « « Nothing contained in the Reichstag resolu- tion, with which the German Government, as I have said, has associated itself, that involves the evacuation of Belgium before the terms of peace have been agreed upon, and it is no doubt the intention of the German Government to claim the return of their lost colonies. This is pro- bably the chief reason why the German Chan- cellor has, so far, refused to make a separate an- nouncement in regard to Belgium. He does not wish to release his hold on Belgium in the dis- cussion of peaoe terms until the fate of the Ger- man Colonies has been decided, but instead of saving so, he tries to evade the point. sa?iiig so? lie trier, to ev.-uie -the point. The Allies on their part are also determined to evade the point at issue if possible. To make the restoration of Belgium the pivot on which the question of peace or war must turn would put into the background a number of other de- mands, not officially disclosed, which the Allies have agreed among themselves to enforce if pos- sible. The question of Germany's lost African Colonies might possibly be successfully nego- tiated if the whole of non-colonisable Africa were made the subject of an international arrange- men j; on the lines suggested by Mr. Morel, but the other 'demands that the Allies kave agreed to make cannot be negotiated. Either they must be dropped or the Central Powers must be beaten to their knees and a dictated peace forced upon them. The" Times clearly recognises this and says so, but responsible Ministers do not dare te state the situation so plainly. For this purely diplomatic reason the Allies pretend that Germany meallB, to keep Belgium in any case, and they treat the Reichstag resolution and the German reply to the Pope as mere bluff, and the press follows the same line and persist- ently deceives the public day by day. For the better understanding of the forces at work at this critical moment it is advisable to quote the exact wordte of a passage in the Times" leading article of October 4th: "C The choice for both sides," says the Times, is surrender or defeat. There can be no half-way house. The Germans can have peace to-morrow by accepting our terms, and thtim confessing to the world that they have been well and soundly beaten in the struggle they have provoked. They cannot have it on any other terms, and the Allies will refuse to converge on any others." » s With respect to this declaration of the "Times," I will only express the opinion that if it were acted upon, Lord Northcliffe's view that the war will last another three years will have to be revised, for the end is far more remote, and that when the end does come all the belliger- ent nations will be involved in one common ruin and Europe itself will be a back number among the continents of the world. :I< m I Fortunately, there are forces at work in Ger- many which might have operate d there long ago if the people, of this country had insisted on their Government doing what in the end it will have to do, that is, declare its war alms and submit them to the judgment of the whole world. The Pope's note and the removal of the menace of Russian Imperialist aggression have partially de- prived the militarist party in Germany of its case against the peace party in Germany. Rus- sia seeks no conquests now, she only wishes for peace and the opportunity to organise her own internal affairs, and the Pope's note has given the German Reichstag the opportunity of de- manding a clear declaration from the German Government as to its war aims. a For over a month the British press- has been scoffing at the German Reichstag for its alleged impotence, and, for its wicked complicity with the Chancellor, sometimes one and sometimes the other. The public memory is short and the same newspaper has been known to argue one day that the Reichstag resolutions are of no account to the German Government and a few days later has argued that the Reichstag and the Chancellor are acting in collusion to hood- the Chance l lor are actl' n towever, we, learn that wink the Allies. To-day, however, we learn that the Reichstag has demanded explanations from the Government concerning its relations with the "war at any price party in Germany, un- der threat of referring the Budget back to the main committee from whence it came if explana- tions are not duly forthcoming. So it appears that the German Reichstag holds the power of the purse," after all. The British Parliament is rapidly losing this power. 11: Mr. Churchill has selected the present critical moment to step once more into the limelight. Whilst forces are at work in all the other belli- gerent countries making for peaoe, he is appeal- ing to the British public in the true spirit of the gambler not to throw away the prize at the moment when it is nearly within its grasp. He has the audacity to mention the Dardanellee, as a chance so lost, which he has himself described as a "gamble." Gamblers when they lose al- ways feel like that. Another throw of the dice, another shuffle of the cards, and they would have won. In this case, however, it is lives of men and the fate of nations at stake, and Ministers who boast before the world in a great war of their intention to dig a powerful and safely secured fleet like rats out of a hole, and do not make good their words, and who indulge in deadly and ruinous gambles with the lives of men as at the Dardanelles, might have the de- cency to hold their tongues. < If Mr. Churchill is so anxious for the war to go on, why didn't he stop there ? He is a trained soldier, aaid it has never been euggestai that he wsus discharged, "medically unfit." ij* waus not released from the Army under the sub- stitution scheme because he had no job to to. Indeed, he has only just found a regular job after waiting many months. Moreover, on kin own confession, he ie one of the very few men J. this country who for years prepared secretly f<# this war when he should have openly appMl k to the coumb-y and to the world to rmove tk? c&uses of friction which he must have been well aware existed. He was also aware that Blelaino would probably be the battleground where armies consisting of millions of men would meet with modern weapons, and he took no steps t* save tke innocent, that iooffending small iiatiOOY either by endeavouring to eliminate it from tho struggle or by effectively preparing to defend it at the entrance gates. He, and his fri-ell(w) gambled then on the ability of Russia aB France to overthrow, practically unaided, th* land forces of Germany and Austria. He, and they, gambled then, and they are still zambliltg- < And all the while the British publio-as tk* German public have been until recently— being stampeded by the press into a perfect ta*" nado of unreasoning hatred. Under cover of th18 hatred the war as it continues, develops frolg one form of ferocity to another, always for th. worse. Gas dispersed among the etemy by Hieans of shells, is succeeded by gas in clouds over a wide area, and, to gas in clouds, there J8 added the terrors of boiling oil. One enthu- siastic war correspondent describee the effect af the latest invention as follows:- As a German brigade were moving fO"- ward from its cover two English barrage firee took them on the Hank and, dealing thew severe blow, turned them into a. sunken road- Titen there occurred the very event which was anticipated, and which was a fitting reply to the gas attacks of Araientieres and Belgium..Five hundred litres (110 gallons) Of boiling oil burst from special engines and en- closed in its circle of Are the wily and terrified Germans. Yells of despair rose for a moment from the sunken road, but the barrage fro* the barrage fines redoubling made all actio* impossible. A deadly silence soon fell upe- the heap of earbonized humanity." Passages such as the above quoted are f by British mothers withoub thinking that ,lWI- lar descriptions of the carnage among the sol* of British mothers are printed in German Jle"e- papers. In every case the newly added horror is excused m the country of its origin on tb. ground that it is a reprisal for what has bfO* done by the enemy nation. It is specially nece"' sary that we should think of this now tha.t Vfo « are on the point of a further extension of 1!s.t conducted by aircraft. The very day on whick it was announced that the Government had dlY cided on air reprisals, it was also reported that the Allies had raided the town of Stuttgar) also from the air. The fact is that air-raiding has been caxrivd on over German towns ever since September 1914, when Dusseldorf and Cologne were botb raided. Ila November, 1914, Friedrichsha^ was raided. In June, 1U16, Karlsruhe was raied and no were killed, including 82 children. 0* Juno 5th last th. Bonar Law stated in tb. House of Commons that the town of was raided on twenty-four separate occasion" April and May, when over 1.000 bombs (}OnM]-. ing thirty tone of explosive* were dropped- It is impossible to carry on this form of "aI- fare against towns, in any country, without tending the war to the civilian population, what is contemplated now is merely a vast tension of present practices. This means, 0 cou, thai; the war is entering on another rtag' of its devilish progress. The public, goaded w the press, calls for this next step, but it lit?by knows where it may Jlead.

A JUSTICE AND AN OFFICER. 1 At Cefn Oo?d Police Court on Saturday Robert Mo(rthy, a labourer, was charged V7it? stealing 46 H). of hrass,mb. of white metal, ? 6 b. of copper, valued at ?3, the property of employers, Messrs. Robert McAlpine and  the contractors for the Merthyr ClorporatIO" j New. w?torwork? at Pontsticill. Prisoner was 0,:oi to prison for two months with hard laoour'-f¡:e soner: Can't you give me the option of a  I'r ?-Colonel J. J. Jones (the chairman): J we can give m option to & man who plunders ?' employers in this way.

1 Theatre Royal. I The visit of Arthur Hinton's able little <? pany to the Theatre Royal this week in two eU choice melo-dramatic selections as Let no  Put Asunder," and the great Jewish EL'y Leah, the Forsaken, is a happy one. re- work is so excellently well handled, and larly in its heavy leads by Jerrold Heather j IV Leah Corentez, that it gets a much firmer grip on the sentiments and feelings than is us the case with melo-drama. I can confidently^ commend the plays—" Let No Man Asunder is re-staged on Saturday—to all care for the appel of drama at its best. {of But next week after all is the great week; foy Mr. Morton Powell's Repertory Company 11?r, turning, this time with Ibsen's Ghosts. great social aDd moral play of the greatest P1, wright of genius that the past hundred 37egrs Pb;s produced is certain of a reception that wII .Ij into use the "House Full cards from AI,Olldof on. The story of Ghosts," its hostile r<? tion, nay, its absolute interdiction, is one OwitD romnaces of dramatic history, but, together j!jtli its white-hot sequel, the result of the ban, ^.ell Enemy of the People," it has become so J)1ø.5' known by the associated comparison of the IVas, terpieoe with Damaged Goods that I fe-11 that to further refer to it here would be le, ture the converted. Following the v". sl t of Brieux's play a month or so back I lKn<)Vv tb,Oi scores of copies of Ghosts were bough'lid read, and in every ca?& the written 'Word duced a profound effect. Yet, unlike P?  Ibsen is no pamphleteer. Ghosts rea<? It because it is a masterpiece of a genius, ? ? ?y was written for production, and it is ?s ? ?c that it reaches its greatest heights, p,iiinibl deepest depths, and fires its most caustic J. velio into the hypocricy of social usages. Of cotlrse, I am postulating here that it is handled ,f b,y ?? capable company, and not by a collection je- clamatory clowns, or "distinguished 91 ag, tcurs, and I purposely refrained fom -ntr? ducing my remarks by any observations the absolute necessity of a first-ate ,Ompanyl b.K cause I knew, and you know too, that the Ila010 of Morton Powell ia in itself sunicient 3???g?t? .n. on that score. 'PLA YGOJJ' I