The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1905. AUSTRALIAN LABOUR POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 33, 8 February 1905, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1905. AUSTRALIAN LABOUR POLICY.

for the cause that J«cfc.» axtiaUinot, for the wrong that needs 1 existence. For the future in Hh> dUtanat, Aad tlie oood thmt we oei* do.

The Labour Conference now sitting at Sydney is engaged in devising a plan of campaign for the political conflicts of tlie coming year; and it has just adopted a very comprehensive profession of faith, to which we may assume the majority of the Labour Party throughout the Commonwealth will be prepared to subscribe. There is notlung very startling about the new "'platform," or, more accurately, nothing in which it differs essentially from the views already put forward by leaders of the Australian Labour Party. We in New Zealand may not forget that the industrial classes in Australia are still struggling for many privileges which have been already accepted here as the undoubted rights of Labour; and to a Liberal Democrat born and bred in this colony there may not appear to be much room for criticism in the Sydney Labour programme. But there are to be discerned in it at least indications of a tendency towards Socialistic doctrines which cannot fail to quicken the antagonism that the Labour Party has already aroused; and though Australian Labour is "Solid" and persistent, it may yet have to wait a long time before it reaches even the level of material success and political influence already attained by industrialism in New Zealand. One important section of the Labour programme deals with the inevitable and eternal land question. The Conference recommends that the sale of Crown lands should cease, and that a system of closer settlement should be inaugurated by the State. The provision for resumption of land at ten per cent, above the owner's valuation for taxation purposes is perhaps grimly ous, and is not likely to work so well I as our own system of arbitration awards: but it serves to show how closely Australia is following New Zealand in dealing with the land. The demand for water conservation and irrigation is one that no political prejudice can ignore; indeed, it is remarkable that the supineness of the "vested interest" class in this respect should have given Labour the chance to adopt so attractive a rallying cry. The proposal for a progressive land tax is another proof of the indirect influence of our own legislative experiments upon Australia's public opinion ; and though auch a measure is likely to be resisted strenuously, the land policy of the Labour Party as a whole is sufficiently moderate and rational to deserve and to command success in the near future. j The "planks'" of the new "platform" j are necessarily somewhat miscellaneous 1 in character, and we must be content with a cursory glance at its salient features. "Free education" is, from our point of view, a step in the right direction; and we are glad to observe that the Australian Labour Party attaches great importance to the elaboration of a system of local government. The tendency to bureaucratic centralisation has already gone too farTn New Zealand, and it would be well for our Liberal Democrats to take a lesson

Xt this respect Sram their less progressive brethren in Australia. We cannot ionrmend so freely the request for "full jivil rights to Federal State and muni:ipal employees," if this means that all >ueh persons are to be treated politieiUy as if they did not hold exceptional Dositioiis burdened with peculiar responsibilities towards the whole community. This' aspect of the question lies, of course, at the root of the struggle over the Federal Arbitration Bill, ivhiek has already destroyed two or three Ministries, and is still fraught with danger to all political parties alike. As to the State Bank that is to take the place of existing savings banks, we hope that the Labour Party will not imperil its more important prospects by attempting to force too soon upon the country any such crude experiment In public finance. But there is in the Labour platform, as we have pointed out, more than a trace of that tendency toward extreme Socialistic legislation with which the establishment of State banks and the nationalisation of industries are usually associated in the public mind. This conviction deepens as we read the clauses of the Labour programme which apply to Federal legislation. A Federal national bank, and the substitution of the single tax on unimproved land values for indirect duties on food and clothing, are two of its most important features ; and the controversial bitterness that is certain to be stirred up over the discussion of these questions augurs ill for the coming political year. The vig-1 orcus assertion of a Protective policy goes to prove that whatever Mr Reid or Sir Alfred Deakin may say, the Labour! Party is by no means disposed to "sink the fiscal question" even for a year; and the demand that the-whole of Australian shipping shall be manned and owned by Australians or Britons only is an assertion of nationalism that is likely to surprise Englishmen almost as much as it will shock foreigners. But in estimating the political value of such manifestos we have always to remember that a party in opposition necessarily speaks in a different ton<? from the same party in power. The new Labour programme is in some ways distinctly aggressive and destructive; and the predominance of organised Labour as a political factor in all the States might suggest tiiat the next two or three sessions of the Federal Parliament will be of a somewhat revolutionary character. But the record of Mr Watson's Ministry may serve to disabuse our minds of any anxiety on that score. The responsibilities of office must always ; have a sobering and steadying effect upion even the most ardent political reformer; and we have seen that when the Labour Party was for the time in power it displayed a tact and moderation with which hostile critics are generally alow to credit it. We believe in the future of Democracy most largely because we have implicit faith in the fundamental rationality of the average man; and the Labour Conference's "platform" gives proof tlmt even when leading a political agitation against powerful opponents, 'the Australian Labour Party is reasonable in its demands and public spirited in its ambitions. The declaration that all State borrowing must cease except for unfinished and remunerative works is one of the healthiest signs of public sanity that Australia has yet evinced, and if the Labour Party does nothing else but put an end to the reckless extravagance which has gone far toward ruining several of the Australian States all political parties alike will have reason to congratulate themselves upon its steady growth, its increasing vitality, and the admirable organisation which makes it the most effective political force in the Commonwealth.