SERIOUS LABOUR SPLIT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 243, 2 July 1918, Page 5

SERIOUS LABOUR SPLIT

BIG SECESSION FROM BRITISH

LABOUR PARTY

DISTRUST OF KERENSKYS

AND VAPOURERS

London, June 30. Two hundred delegates at a mooting in tlio Caxton Hall resolved on the formation of a distinct Labour ?arty l'or trade unionists. The chairman declared tho object of (ho party was to opposo pacifism anions Labourites, though it wns not hostile to the Trade Union Con-

gress. • Mr. Havelock Wilson {Seamen's Union) said tho gathering did not include blacklegs or Bolshevists, nor would any Kerenskys dramatically appear on tho platform. lie described Kerensky aa "a most dangerous typo of gasbag," who was responsible for .Russia's present condition.

Tho spokesman of tho new Trade Union Party sharply denounced the abolition of tho party truce. He declared that it was part of the programme of tho non-unionists and pacifists, and its real intention was to remove the present Government and substitute one which would secure tho Lenin-TroUty kind of peace. • None of tho Labour Ministers was present at tho inauguration of the new trade, union partv, but tho Parliamentary Labour Party- will immediately review the situation. . Admittedly 'the split is serious, indicating tho grosving trado union opinion demanding that the Labour l'arty shall shed its pacifist influences and declairo its determination to have no dealings with Germany until tho latter admits aha is beaten. Tho Sailors' and Firemen a Union suipports the new party—Aua.N.Z. Gable Assn.