The Dominion. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1914. LABOUR AND REFORM

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2315, 24 November 1914, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1914. LABOUR AND REFORM

; A very real weakness on the part of the Reform Party is its disinclination to parade its own achievements. It is true that Ministers and members of the party at times recount in a bald fashion, what has been accomplished, but they are far too much given to allowing their performances to speak for themselves as an answer to hostile criticism. In nothing is this more marked than in the case ,of its efforts in j the interests of what is commonly known as Labour. The Opposition, and many Labour people themselycs are never tired of shouting that the Reform Government is the enemy of Labour, and that it has done nothing for'the working man. The intelligent and thinking working man too inquires for himself knows perfectly well that these parrot cries are merely designed to serve party ends, regardless of the real tacts; but there' are many people who allow their, opinions to be shaped for them, and so are misled. It is desirable, therefore, that those who support the Government, and who know tho truth, should make it their (business _ to show Labour how it is being tricked ; .and deceived- in this matter by the people who so loudly profess to be its friends. They will,not convince the extremists, who hate the Government because it refused to allow them to ■ terrorise and intimidate their fellow working men and the public generally; but the sane and reasonablo body of workers is open to conviction, for the simple reason that the average working man know it does not pay them, any more than it pays anyone else, ta allow themselves, to be fooled by false statements and bogus charges. Tho wives of the working men who have to bear the greater share of the burden of hardship and suffering due to their husbands and sons being led into strikes and industrial strilo by the Labour extremists aro also anxious to know the trutli. They aro not willingly deceived, and many of them accept tho absurd stories circulated with the object of injuring the Government, because they are not aware of the real facts. As a matter of plain fact, sane Labour owes more to tho Reform Government than oven the friends of the Government fully realise. Tho lato Parliament is probably without a parallel in the history of the Dominion in the matter of benefits conferred upon Labour., The list is, indeed, so comprehensive that some' of its items are apt to bo overlooked. At the head of the list stands the Labour Disputes Investigation Act. This Act ensures the democratic control of unions by a majority of their members, and by the institution of tho secret ballot guards against the majority being dominated by a minority of unscrupulous strikemongers as happened in a number of cases last year. Avowedly passed to avert a recurrence of the conditions which arose at the time of the waterside strike,, its only opponents were a few of the extreme Labour Socialists.' It was essentially an Act in the interests of sane Labour. Amongst tho detail industrial reforms enacted by the Government may be mentioned the six-day week for hotel employees, liberal improvements in the Workers' Compensation Act. better regulation of the accommodation provided for flaxmill employees ana other agricultural workers, the registration of plumbers and a rapid extension of the workers' dwellings schemo. The present Government has erected more dwellings in two years than the Ward Government did in six, and is further extending the benefits of the scheme. Details of industrial legislation do not by any means exhaust the chronicle of what the Reform Government has done for Labour. It has improved working conditions and largely increased wages in all the mam avenues of State employment, and has performed an act of justice in making many so-called temporary employees permanent. The improvements made in < the State pensions system are essentially calculated to benefit the people commonly grouped under_ the designation of Labour. Knowing that the Government has secured the pension to women at the, age of sixty years, instead of keeping them waiting until they were sixty-five, and has provided- ttat every child of a widow shall get a' pension, the public will bo enabled to still further appreciate tho mendacity of the statement that Reform is antagonistic to Labour.' The Government has equally studied the interests of Labour in raising the rate of interest upon the people s savings in the Post Office Savings Bank, in enabling men without means to take up small 'areas of land (under tho country workers' dwellings schemo and on the northern gum lands), and in such measures as the Footwear Regulation Act, which provides that boots and shoes must be branded with a true description. This last-named Act comes into operation in January. In fact, as most people who have followed tho proceedings in Parliament perfectly well know, tho Labour policy of tho Government has been to safeguard tho intorests of tho workers, to improve wages and working conditions and to provide facilities for advancement. These are facts which cannot be disputed, and they only require to be made known to ensure for the Government the support of a very large section of Labour. It is of no value to tho working man or to the working man's wife and family to live in a constant state of industrial turmoil and uncertainty. Like everyone else, they benefit by sound and stable govcrnracut and settled conditions of employment, and that is' tho real issue at the coming elections; Refoi'm and stablo government, or Wardism and tho Red Federation. If the wives of the working men and the sane section of Labour had to dccido the issue, then unquestionably tho v«rdi«t would bo V*K Ttcforjn,.