LABOUR AND REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1329, 5 January 1912, Page 4

LABOUR AND REFORM.

- — o The current issue, of the official organ of the New Zealand Labour party iu Auckland, The Voice of Labour, contains nn interesting article on the political situation. The Voice, it would seem, recognises the Ward Administration for the sham it really is. The succors achieved at the polls by the Reform-Labour alliance in the Xorth (it states), us contrasted with the failure of the Liberal-Labour alliance in the South, not only bears eloquent testimony to tho soundness of "The Voice's" political policy, but is pregnant with deep meaning to tne wholo of those who are interested in seeing Labour secure adequate and independent representation iu our national Legislature. Tho utter breakdown of the Liberal-Labour alliance at the ballot-box, its total repudiation by the workers themselves, should at least serve to make clear to even tho most blind Labour worshipper of the Ward Administration 'hat "The Voice" in its policy has but expressed the opinion of tho masses themselves. Whatever Labour may have had m common with the Ballauce or Seddon Administration, wjth the Ward Administration it had nothing—for the very simph reason that the Ward Administration has never doue anything for Labour except increase the cest of living. After pointing out that the AVard Administration went to the country yith no constructive policy, and that its only reply to the demands of Labour was "to rummage among the dry bones of the past and fish out something that Seddox or B.m.lance or Beeves, or somebody else had ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago," The Voice goes on to state" that for the past ten years the Opposition party has grown steadily more democratic, and the Liberal party steadily more reactionary. Nothing more, it says, was required to convince the workers of this than "the fact that the .Reform rurty is led by Plain Bill Masses:," while the so-called Liberals, with an assortment of 'Sirs,' follow in the trail of a Baronet." The. official organ of the New Zealand Labour party admits frankly enough that the, Labour party does not see eye to eye with the Eeform party on all questions, although it has much more in common with Mr. Massev than with Sir Joseph Ward. To quote its own words on the subject:

It would of course be idle to assume that the Itcform party endorse all of tho Labour party's platform, aud it would be equally fooli-h to attune that Labo.ir e-i----doiscs all of the Heform party's ideas; Jill this will bo perfectly understood by both Labourite aud Jtvi'orincr. Hut. on tho other hand, there are many Ihinjjs that both the Labourites and the ltefrrm party do u;ree upon, <-.nd they can in the meantime work together to do these. things, and perhaps when iin'y have accomplished these things tiipy will find still other points of agreement, without iu either case forgoing tho right to adopt a critical attitude towards the things they do not igree upon.

By way of illustration, it is pointed out that both the Labour and the Reform parties arc agreed as to the necessity of finally displacing the AVard Administration from ollice and cleaning up the finances of the country. Then both are agreed as to the necessity for making tho Upper House an elective body. A third point of agreement is "the necessity for the abolition of Departmental secrets and the furnishing to the public of Departmental accounts." Reform of the Old Age Pensions Act by making tho qualifying ago for women GO years instead of 05 is a further line of policy which The Voice mentions as one which Bcform <nd Labour hold in common. The article in this official Labour organ is of special interest at the present juncture as affording evidence that at least a section of organised Labour is fully alive to the necessity for a complete severance of such ties as may still exist, binding it to a Government which, in recent years has merely treated Labour as a tool to bo used at election times and thrown contemptuously "aside on other occasions.. There is one thing for which tho..lief orm J, party and the Labour party can each give the other credit. They have a number of points of policy in common, as mentioned by The Voice, but in addition to this each party knows exactly where the other stands on all the larger political issues of tho day. They each have the courage to put forward their views and to fight for them. Even where they disagree they can each other. With the' Ward Administration it not only lacks the courage to fight for such opinions as it may hold—for has it not won the title of "The Back-down Ministry"? —but it is the most difficult thing in the world to get it to put forward definite views on any question where votes may be lost by a clear-cut pronouncement one way or the other. Labour knows to its"cost what it has had to pay for its association with the Ward Government, and it is not surprising that the more far-seeing of its lenders should recognise that the speediest way to secure a united Labour party is the destruction of the Government whose aim it has been throughout to keep Labour in leading strings, in order to prevent it becoming a separate and independent power in the politics of the country.