We make our appeal

 

Is this a free country ?—Undoubtedly.—Who says so?—Those who own it.—Who is it free to ?—Those who own it.—How about the workers?—Being slaves, they only count as such.—Have they no rights?—None whatever.—Not even the right to work ?—Not even that. —How came one class to have all the rights?—The workers made them a present of them and re-affirm it at every General Election.—Then they are in chains !—Absolutely. — Then what can be done—Nothing but keep pegging away at them with socialist knowledge. It is the only instrument that will knock off the chains and shift the rights from one side to the other.

You, the exploited, are the overwhelming majority. And yet the exploiters have the power and dominate you! Wherein lies their power?

It is rooted in their ownership of the greater part of the land, of the fields and forests, the mines, the factories, transportation– in one word, in their ownership of the means of life.

It is maintained through their control of and command over the armed forces, the police, the courts, and the whole coercive machinery, with which they keep you down.

It is rooted in their ability – thanks to their command over church and school and media – to stupefy you.

It is rooted, finally, in your allowing yourselves to be befogged and mocked by their sham democracy.

They have given you the right to vote, but the right to the sources of wealth, the right to the mines, to the factories, to the great estates, they keep for themselves.

Yours the voting power; theirs the wealth, the profits; such is their democracy – a democracy of exploiters!

Never will the exploiters willingly renounce their mines, their factories, their large estates!

Never will they voluntarily decide on such a renunciation!

Never will they peaceably acquiesce in such a measure and reform!

Every law made in that Parliament is destined to serve the interests of the exploiters only! To you they throw a few bones, some crumbs, in order to hide their policy of roguery.

And the Labour Party? They demand from them somewhat bigger – crumbs; they praise socialism to you in fine phrase, but the mines, the factories, the large estates – they leave to the bloodsuckers! They tell you: the country has no money; patience, patience, patience !

Open your eyes, ye poor and downtrodden! Can you see the hundreds of magnificent villas? There they live, those who suck million profits out of the arduous toil of your busy hands! There the drones live a life of ease and pleasure !

Away with the exploiters! Away with the drones of life!

Do you think that parliament will ever put down such laws ? Never, never! Neither would the Labour Partyif they had the majority there. In fact, they were once the government And yet you have remained the exploited! This Parliament has been created by the exploiters; it can have no other policy but that of a party of exploiters! Those who tell you different are swindlers, or they deceive themselves and you. And yet –

WE IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY WANT TO GET INTO THIS PARLIAMENT !

We socialists want to show you, on every question or measure which comes before that House for consideration, that the Conservatives and the Nationalists care for nothing except the moneybags of the exploiters. We want to show you that they deceive you at every turn, that the very crumbs they throw at you are merely so much dust in your eyes, and – that the Labour Party are favouring this policy of exploitation.

We want to show you, by practical example, that only an administration can be of any real USE TO YOU wherein the exploiters have nothing to say and nothing to decide – in a word, from which the exploiters have been driven once and for all.

But only as a majority of the working class – elected into the present Parliament by really class-conscious workers – be able to snatch the power from the exploiters and place at your disposal the army,  the legal machinery, the administration , the school and the media.

Only such REVOLUTIONARY workers will be able to take from the exploiters the mines, the factories, the large estates, the forests, the railways, and the ships, and place them in YOUR HANDS – in the hands of those who work – that they may wield them for the benefit of the whole community instead of for the benefit of a few idlers.

Only a socialism will lay the foundations for a community of workers, by first of all breaking the opposition of the exploiters and holding them down until their acquiescence in the new order of things has been secured and assured.

Only by sending men and women into this Parliament who will have no other aim but the ABOLITION OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN THE MEANS OF LIFE, will your interests be served, and will you be able to organise production on a new basis, in the interest of all who work, evolving order out of chaos, and bringing about a social order wherein poverty, privilege, and oppression will find no place, and wherein all may lead a full, free, and joyous existence.

Workers in field and factory, if you want to free yourselves from the oppression of capitalism, then you must break the power of the exploiters by common revolutionary action !

Victorious revolutionary action presupposes a CLASS-CONSCIOUS working class. You will therefore have to remove the blinkers from your eyes ! It is for the purpose of making you see, in order to expose the daily practices in the political arena – the lies, the deceit, the humbug, and the misleading ways and intricacies of this sham democracy – that we want to get into this Assembly. To this end preliminarily

THE SOCIALIST PARTY ASKS FOR YOUR VOTES.

MAKE AN END TO THE POLITICAL BARTER OF YOUR LIVES !

AND END TO THE POLICY OF CRUMBS !

ALL VOTES FOR SOCIALISM! ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS!