ORGANISATION OF LABOUR committees, combined with similar bodies in other mills and mines, associated locally, regionally and nationally, would constitute a new type of labour organisation which would be the virile voice of toil and its effective agency. It would have the whole weight and energy of the united workers at the back of it and would represent a pbwer tr=endous in its scope and potentialities. · In the daily struggle of the proletariat such an organisation would be able to achieve victories about which the conservative union, as at present built, cannot even dream. It would enjoy the respect and confidence of the masses, would attract the unorganised and unite the labour forces on the basis of the equality of all workers and their joint interests and aims. It would face the masters with the whole might of the working class back of it, in a new attitude of consciousness and strength. Only then would labour acquire dignity and the expression of it assume real significance. Such a union would soon become something more than a mere defender and protector of°the worker. It would gain a vital realisation of the meaning of unity and consequent power, of labour solidarity. The factory and shop would setve as a training camp to develop the worker's understanding of his proper role in life, to cultivate his self-reliance and independence, teach him mutual help and co-operation, and make him conscious of his responsibility. He will learn to decide and act on his own judgment, not leaving it to leaders or politicians to attend to his a,ffairs and look out for his welfare. It will be he who will determine, together with his fellows at the bench, what they want and what methods will best serve their aims, and his committee on the spot would merely carry out instructions. The shop and factory would become the worker's school and college. There he will learn his place in society, his function in industry, and his purpose in life. He will mature as a workingman and as a man, and the giant of labour will attain his full stature. He will know and be strong thereby. Not long will he then be satisfied to remain a wage slave, an employee and dependent on the good will of his master whom his toil supports. He will grow to_understand that present economic and social'ar!"angements are wrong and criminal, and he will determine to change them. The shop committee and union will become the field of preparation for a new economic system, for a new social life. - You see, then, how necessary it is that you and' I, and every man and woman who has the interests of labour at heart, work toward these objects. And right here I want to emphasise that it is particularly urgent. 73 Biblloteca ·Gno Bianco
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