MR. WEBB'S SEAT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 99, 19 January 1918, Page 8

MR. WEBB'S SEAT

Sir,—Strange indeed arc the inferences which your correspondent "West Coast" seeks to draw from the voting figures in the Grey electorate. Olio especially puts a queer,, perhaps an unwarranted, complexion upon the Reform Party. Unconsciously hit manifestly "West Coast" makes out that in Grey, to go no further, with the exception of such as are convinced Labourites, practically all the Protestants are supporters of the Reform Party. Who, then, I would ask him, is responsible for political sectarianism? Surely he will admit the force of his own argument in this regard as readilv as he wishes others to admit it in reference to the Catholics. And where does the guilt of the Labour Party appear? I readily admit the genuineness of his wish to confirm Mr. Elliott, but does he wish also to keep cloudiness out of the issue?

Further, if the Catholics, as "West Coast" assorts, all voted Liberal until their candidate dropped out, why does he infer that their aim was to capture the Labour Party? Surely, a«ain, whatever grievance exists, should be that of the Labour Party. Yet the Labourites were not found arraigning the people now ostensibly championed by those who rail at Labour as being biased in a way belonging, on their own showing, markedly to Protestants themselves. ■> Another strange inference, if one less unconscious, is that the voting figures prove Grey not to be a working-class constituency. "West Coast" is very penetrating indeed in his generalisations from the figures of a secret ballot. But. let him turn from the figures to look at the district itself. Can lie sav that less than nine of every ten voters here are of the working class, when ho sees the place subsists on half a dozen collieries, numerous sawmills, and goldmines, and other industries, which for their prosecution require almost wholly manual labour? As the profits from those industries go largelv elsewhere, there is little here ca wealthv class. The very fact of Labour holding the- sent in Parliamentwhatever "West Coast" may my assuming nroof—is an indication which the unbiased mind will not 18 TsMgards the Catholics, let me say first that here, as everywhere in Australasia, the fact is plain that of their number a far larger proportion belong to the working class than in the ca.e of any other religious denomination. Now, as to Mr. Webb's majority. It stood last election slightly sliott ot a thousand votes. When the vote hero became a straight-out one as between Reform and Labour, the figures show that of the two thousand or so who at first had voted Liberal, two-thirds fall Catholics, according to West Coast") voted Labour. Ihe other third (all Protestants, of course!) voted Reform. Of course, they had no bias 1 They only wanted to see a close finish I Now, of the (Catholic) twothirds group, more than half, at least, must have been workers, and it does not argue sectarianism if, they voted for the working-class candidate. He residue of the Catholic vote would be very far below Mr. Webb's majority. The figures, mind the fiugues! 1 hear "West Coast" exclaim. Has Mr. Webb, ho asks, a thousand Catholic supporters? This question raises another—one that should, instead ot a mere counting of heads, be the determinant point in this argument. Did Mr. Webb's Catholic supporters voto "for him for political or for religious reasons? If there were a thousand of them who did, then "West Const would be right. But would 'west Coast" contend that any Catholic candidal could win the Grey seat from Labour to-day? Suppose a Catholic Coalitionist stood, would he take a single vote from Mr. Webb? Not on the ground of religion, at any rate! The essence of the dispute is, what determines working-class voters to support Labour? Self-interest is the undoubted answer. When the sectarian issue is sought to be raised among Labourites it is always, _ here as in Australia,- done from outside, with the ouject of defeating Labour. "Divide and conquer" is no new stratagem; and religious passion is judged to be, tlio only plough (tempered by generations as 'it has been) hard enough to furrow the firm working-class soil. It is like the old Liberal sentiment on the \\ est Coast, where ■ Conservatism or Re""' 1 " lias never succeeded. After Richard John Seddon died Westland was tried as a Reform experimental plot, but despite much fertiliser from outside, tlie culture decayed, and when transferred to Grey it found soil no more congenial. Labour has, however, grown here to be a tree so firmly rooted that no underground sapping by opponents, no matter of what sort, will ever procure its downfall.—l am, etc., A WEST COASTER,' Grcymouth, Jani&ry 14.