TRADE UNIONS............INTERESTS 187
on other important and material points. But there is no meaning in a unity where the point on which people agree to differ is so big that the agreement on small and minor points is of no consequence whatsoever. Whatever may be the view of other people I must say that if organized labour avows to eschew politics their labour is doomed. We at any rate must realize that hitherto our efforts have been directed in one channel of social reform and that we had forgotten or partially remembered that there was the necessity of directing our efforts in the channel of economic reform. We must realize that all the evils under which, we suffer have a common origin- namely that those who exercise social and economic dominance over us have taken over in their hands political power which rightly belongs to the labouring classes.
To enter politics means the formation of a party. Politics without a party behind it is a futility. There are many politicians who prefer to be independent, to plough their lonely furrow. I am always suspicious of a politician who wants to be independent. If a politician is so independent that he cannot join with anybody then he is useless for any practical purposes. He can achieve nothing. His lonely furrow cannot make even a blade of grass grow. But many a politician who want to be independent desire independence not because their intellectual honesty demands it. They want independence because they want to be free to sell themselves to the highest bidder. It is because of this that they want to be free from the trammels of party discipline. At any rate such has been my experience of many of the politicians who are pursuing the line of independence in politics. Without a party there can be no real effective politics.
Question is what party you should join. There are various alternatives. There is the Congress. Should you join the Congress? Will it help the cause of labour ? I have no hesitation in saying that labour should have a separate organization in politics independent of the Congress. I know that this view is opposed by a section of the labour leaders. There is a section represented by the Congress Socialists who would like to have labour organizing itself for the achievement of Socialism but