"Flaneur" writing in Direct Action 1 October 1914
News from the Sunny West - The advent of Fellow Workers McMillon and Daly from the Broken Hill local, caused much fluttering in the Socialist and Labour devotees of this state. Speaking before the Fremantle Socialist Party, McMillon, in a scathing criticism of present Labor organisations, pointed out how the Labor movement in Australia had been diverted from its original aims, and prostituted by profit- hunting Politicians.
In terse and vigorous language he demolished the pretences of the political-cum-industrial Socialists, who urge upon the workers the necessity of capturing, by political methods, the machinery of oppression and exploitation. The speaker pointed out that this machinery was already captured and used by Labor politicians to further oppress and exploit the worker. Unavoidably so as the machinery was designed by capitalists to protect and advance their interests, regardless of the workers' welfare.
As one speaking with inside knowledge the veteran Industrialist detailed the history of the Labor movement in Australia, and told of the spirit animating the worker in the pre-political days, when jail, starvation, police espionage and black listing was the common lot of the rebel worker, and in spite of the repressive tactics f the ruling class, the Cause advanced by leaps and bounds, until political action became the watchword, and the Labor Party became respectable. Since the advent of "Labor" politicians, complete stagnation if not retrogression has been the most outstanding feature of the movement.
The workers, politically organised, ruled Australia and several of the states therein, and yet are forced to beg the "right to live". Instancing the present Prime Minister as an example of the futility of political action, the speaker pointed out that although Andrew Fisher rules Australia for the third time, the workers have still to put in the greater part of their live working for a bare existence.
In concluding his address our fellow worker advised his hearers top contrast the methods of the I.W.W. with those of the "Labor" party, craft-union and political, the absence of high-salaried officials in the one, and the horde of parasites in the other, drawing from £4 to£28 or £30 per week while their paymaster, on the bread-line, is reproached for disloyalty if he grumbles or demands results.
