The Dominion. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1913. "THE NEW COMBINATION."

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1668, 7 February 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1913. "THE NEW COMBINATION."

The public has some reason to xcquire that tho general body of trade- 1 unionists should, be given some opportunity of making an authoritative declaration of their attitudo towards national defence. We have never believed that tho well-paid agitators in charge of "the Labour movement" are in this matter at_all representative of the trade-unionists of Now Zealand, riot to mention the far greater number of wage-earners who aio not trade-unionists. But the Labour bosses arc putting the wage-earners in a fal c e position. In Christchurch on Sunday last a meeting addressed by Mr. Sejiple and "Professor", Mills concluded with, hoots for General Godlev and Mr. Massey. "Cheers were then given/' according to the anti-Reform news-paper-in that town, "for the movement, followed by hooting for the Prime Minister and Gekeral Godley." The same journal stated, on its own bch»lf,.that "tho united party will now present a solid front to all opposing interests"—to the interests, that is to say, as "Professor" Mills and Mr. Semple have made clflar, of political reform and national defence. By Wednesday the newspaper referred to had apparently realised part of its folly m identifying the anti-Eeformers' interests with the interests'of.thoso who hoot the Commandant and the Prime Minister. It said—and this is surely the extreme limit of understatement—that "perhaps the Labour leaders themselves arc' in some measure to blame" for the conclusion that Labour hoots are Labour hobt3. If thoy hoot, we should simply say that they do hoot. What, our contemporary is anxious for is, not that they should not hoot, but that they should not by premature and audible hooting imperil "the new combination" between' Mr. Semple and the remnants of Spoils Party. The "Liberals" are clearly in a hole out of which they must i help themselves. Nobody is much concerned about them. But not a Isinglo Labour lcador, so far as we

arc aware, has said a word.in reproof of the Christchurch hooters, or in reproof of the recent declaration of tho Federation Conference against tho_ defence system. Wo feel quite certain that such members of the old Government party as Mn. A. M Myers, and such; Lab'our men as Mn. Veitch, will repudiate "the new combination" of hooters which some anti-Reform journals are striving for, and which our local /"Labour" leaders, from Mr. M'Laren upward (or downward, as the case may be) are encouraging by their silence. The. political bitterness which has led the anti-Reform newspapers into a gleeful support of the Labour bosses towards ranging the. irreoohcilables of the old Spoils Party and tho Labour bosses against the general body of decent and patriotic workers of all shades of political opinion. '