"BY SKIN OF IT'S TEETH"

Chronicle (Levin), 28 December 1946, Page 4

"BY SKIN OF IT'S TEETH"

w — ' Labour Party Needs Blood Transfusion URGE TO STOP THE DRIFT "In this year of our Lord, 1946, a hundred years after Karl Marx, William Morris, and Robert Owen, it is frightening to recall that every second pe)*son in New Zealand knows no better than to vote for the National Party," states Mr. T. Ilill, national. secretary of the New Zealand Waterside Workers r Union, in the most proniiiient article printed in the current issue of the official organ of the Federated Waterside Workers. The article appears under the hcading: "It Seems to Me . . . Lah.oiir Must -Fight. " '"Christmas," Mr. Ilill rcmarks, "is supposed to be a senson of good will, but it seems to me good will should not be seasonal; in fact, our" nnions in thqir fight against the evils and injustices of the economic system have gone a long way towards making good will more of a day-to-day atfair. Nobody in New Zealand will be starving this Christmas (though many thousands will die for lack of food jn Europe and China), but none of us here can afford to face the New Year in the innocent expectation of permanent peace and prosperity. "Our Government has been reelected by the skin of its teeth . . It must, therefore, be obvious to all but the most incorrigible optimists that Labour will be defeated in 1949 unless the workers tuke a hand and stop the drift. "At this point, one thing should be said — after II years of offire, including, six years of war, two years of postdepression, and one year of post-war conditions, any nornial capitalist political party would have been eonipletely routed. "The Labour Party is not sncb a party, but there is a grave danger of its becoming so, and specious postmortems about improving organisational details, introducing 'preferential voting,' and complaints of 'if only we had done this or that' make defeat in 1949 more inevitable. These things are npt unimportant in themselves, but notbing so clearly mdicates the first signs of political senility and impotency as this reliance on minor organisatxonal improvements for final salvation. "The Labour Party has unfortunately reached the stage where it identifies itself with a system to which it is hysterically opposed — the capitalist system. All those protestations disavowIng Socialism were nat worth a vote." "Making Enemies." j\Ir. Ilill expresses the opinion that there have been faults in the leadership and in the rank and file. By striving "not to antagoni.se any section of the people and to foster the 'don't embarrass the Government' line," the leadership, he states, "ended in making enemies of half the people in this country. " He adds: "The rank and iile, in never properly rising above reckoning the 40-hour, five-day week at 3s (5d an hour to be the ' be-all and end-all' of politics, is ten years behind the tiihes. , "At no stage have Labour 's leaders attempted to take the people into their coniidence or to raise the level of political understanding. Beueiits have come as administrali.ve lmnd-outs from a generous Government. Local Labour Party branches have been allowed to die natural deaths until artilicially respirated for three months before the General Election, and that all-power-ful voice, the radio, remains as non-epntrov-ersial- as. a boys' friendly soeL ety .-debating ciubj: and twiee as timidV . "Lefme repeji-t myself. Hnless the wh'ole Labour movement is transformed over the coming three years we will be defeated. No matter who is to blame for the past, ^responsibility for the future rests laroely with the organised workers, and 'in the final analysis that means you personally, not the Trades II all. "Wall of Ignofiance." " 'Organise and educate,' that must be our slogan — before us is a wall of ignorance lialf a million voters thick, "The Labour Party must be rebuilt from the bottom — and then the top will take care of itself. We must be ready and willing to run our own industries — we must be prepared to give our energies and our experience beyond tbe range of our sectional interests. "To Peter Fraser I say, timidity today is fatal. Take the people into your coniidence. Lead them boldly in their battles and they won't let you down. "Yes, it is a season of peace on eartli and good will to all men — those grand principles are in -the very roots of our great "Labour-* movement — alongside them, liow puny and selfisli look.s "the little flag of Capitalism. Hure, thbre's not a lot of peace in this world and still plcnty of scope for good will, but the workers are on the marcli everywhere. It is a hard trudge, but there is no going back." ( Mr. Barnes Also Speaks. * In the same issue, Mr. H. Barnes, of Auckland, national president of the New Zealand Waterside Workers' Union, comments: "The Labour Government has been returned, but in its re'.urn I can see no grounds for complaeency or self-satisfatcion ... It is self-evident that many workers have vofed National, and while one could level cheap abuse- at them, and east reflection upon their mental make-up, such an attitude would accomplish nothing. "If we are honest with ourselves we will eoncede one of the reasons and that is that the political Labour Party has gone a long way from the workers — it must be brought back to eartk and that will be a job for the trade union movement. The crusader spirit present in past elections was this time con-

spicuous by its absenee. In its place we had candidates appealing for the votes of big business, citing dividends earned during tbe last few years and repudiating Socialism. The loyalty uf workers was stretched almost to breaking point. "Despite what inay be said to the eontrarv, we live in a class system of " society and one section ean only prolit at the expense of another. We have got the right to demand that our conditions be improved at the cost of our traditional exploiters. "I believe the standard of living that will be en.ioyed bv the New Zealand worlcer must be determined by tlie * trade union movement and that, if Labour is going to be returned next time, it must undergo a pretty drastie blood transfusion."