On the Vancouver Island Miners’ Strike 1913

“The B.C. Miners’ Liberation League”

E. T. Kingsley, of the Socialist Party of Canada, said it was not much good to protest so far as getting the dominant class to change its mind was concerned. Such treatment dealt out to the miners had been dealt out to the slave class of old. A movement of this kind will not down. He hoped that the working class would arise some day and knock the “block” off every ruler that lived. The militia and police are the counterpart of the slave class. Slavery and militancy were born together and lived together all down the pages of history. He held no brief for Bowser and McBride. They have been tried in the balance and found no wanting, for they represented the ruling class. A mistake was made by electing them. The two classes have nothing in common. He compared the “working plug” to a balking horse. When he refused to do his master’s bidding he was beat up and locked up in jail for intimidation and various other charges. The speaker had been mixed up in many strikes. Corporation tools and thugs were always on hand to suppress slaves in rebellion. The ruling class had always humbugged the workers. People on the outside of the working class were becoming disgusted with the militia. “We can’t get along without the miner, but we can without the other fellows,” he said. There were many who heard him that did not know where to get the next meal. He referred to the state of trade, and instanced a case where the telephone company had complained of a man who had been in business 16 years jumping without paying his bill, and added that “things were going on the bum.” (Laughter.) The end of the modern system of production was a reasonable distance of ending. (Applause.)