BRANCH FORMED IN WELLINGTON

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 185, 2 May 1940, Page 11

BRANCH FORMED IN WELLINGTON

Democratic Labour

SPEECHES BY MR. LEE AND MR. BARNARD

Official Party Attacked

A public meeting of more than 500 people which crowded the concert chamber of the Wellington Town Hall last evening and listened to addresses by. the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Barnard, and the member for Grey Lynn, Mr. Lee, resolved practically unanimously to endorse the aims and objects of the speakers, formed itself into the Wellington branch of the Democratic Labour Party, and sent fraternal greetings to the Grey Lynn and Napier branches of the party. About six hands were raised against the motion.

Mr. P. Connors presided. Other speakers were Mrs. Lee, Mr. A. 11. Carman, for six years president of the Tawa Flat branch of the Labour Party, and Mr. A. E. Marker. The meeting also elected a provisional Wellington executive, and passed a motion, practically unanimously, deploring the attitude of the Minister of Public Works, Mr. Semple, in discharging a man in the South Island because he viewed things politically different.from the Minister. Mr. Lee and Mr. Barnard were given a wholly friendly and enthusiastic reception and accorded musical honours. Service in Last War. Referring to the fact that both Mr. Lee and Mr. Barnard were returned soldiers, Mr. Connors said that the spirit of 1914-18 prevailed in them, and the spirit of Anzac could not be killed. Today they were still fighting for New Zealand, freedom and democracy. While Mr. Lee and Mr. Barnard were away fighting in the Inst war, certain of the present leaders of the Labour Party were telling the young men of New Zealand not to go and fight. Mr. Barnard said that he and Mr. Lee were looking for the support of young New Zealanders. Theirs was a New Zealand movement, and the future was with the young people. If people who wanted to join a Democratic Labour Party were also members of the Peace and Anti-Conscription Movement, he had no objection. He was a very poor hand at heresy hunting. lie had not resigned from the Labour Party from any feeling of pique, Mr. Barnard said. He resigned under a strong sense of duty, and obviously a man had a great deal to lose by taking the action he had done. Big Industrial Leaders. “I have left very largely because of the growing tendency in the Labour Party away from democracy,” Mr. Barnard said. “It is a long story. It is a process that has gone on for a long time. When I found that the big industrial leaders, closely allied with momibers of Cabinet, were inflicting o.n the party what was nothing less than dictatorship, I felt 'that I could no longer remain, a member.” The principal, obstacle inside the Parliamentary Labour Party to carrying out its financial policy had been the Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash himself, Mr. Barnard said. Mr. Nash had never seen eye to eye-with the bulk of hie party In that. Stating that he had served as a volunteer in the last war, Mr. Barnard said that in some important respects he had a better right to go recruiting in New Zealand than the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser. “Fascism does not come in a flood,” he said’. “It comes like the tide, inch by inch, slowly. It has come a good, way in New Zealand. We have to see that it is swept out again. Labour And National. “We find people who say this is no time for domestic quarrels, that there is a tremendous war on, on which the fate of the Empire depends. The soldier did his job and won the war last time, and the politicians lost.the peace during the next 20 years. We have to carry on the war for democracy inside New' Zealand as well. The gap between the official Labour Party and the National Party is lessening day by day. The Press of the Dominion is pouring its benediction on this process. . . “If you join this movement, we promise you hard knocks. Already people who have joined up have been threatened with economic suffering. We do not expect an easy path, but we hope that in the end we may be able to transform the Labour movement 1 in this country.” Mrs. Lee alleged that at the annual conference of the Labour Party, Mr. Barnard, the Speaker of the House,

had not been allowed on the platform to speak. Someone on the platform had said: “You stay down there, Barnard.” No one in the conference, except a favoured few, knew that a motion for the expulsion of her husband was to come down. Conference was a black-out conference. A voice: A black shirt conference. United Front of “Bossism.” Mrs. Lee: Even the “culprit” did not know what was coming up at the conference. I saw there a united front of bossism. I saw a great big machine which was running over and crushing its own, soul.

A voice: Did it have any? Mrs. Lee; It once had one. It was a lovely thing then. When Mr. Lee rose to speak he was accorded an enthusiastic demonstration. “For the moment the programme we stand for is the programme the Labour Party was elected on at the last general election and is not putting into operation,” he said. “We stand more particularly for the financial clause of that programme, but also for the health clause. The people were promised a national health system, and we say that even ’though the present Prime Minister was never in favour of the entire health system the party insisted on, it is his duty to give effect to the promises to the people at. the last election.’ “That policy, which was a great policy, is good enough for us. But we mean it. We do not believe that there should be a political, truce. We fought in one war. We were promised a world fit for heroes to live in. We say there are two fronts. We are going to press home and attack on the home front, and build a world fit for heroes to live in.” Mr. .Savage’s Report. Mr. Lee said no one had yet discovered a single instance in his political career when he had been absent from the front line when Labour was fighting. Referring to “the extraordinary last testament” of the late Mr. Savage, Mr. Lee said those who used that statement only pretended to venerate the memory of the man. “I had my differences,” he added. “I won’t shirk explaining them. I have been reputed to be a political enemy of Mr. Savage, but I am going to believe that he died in a spirit of charity and forgiveness.

"I am accused of having used a curse word. Is there a man in this audience who, when working among .men, has not used a curse word about somebody? Will that paragon hold up his hand? Who was the greatest sneak in the history of New Zealand, who, bearing me saying something, climbed the hill to whisper it in the ear of a dying man? Who was it?” Mr. Lee sai'd the waterside delegates at the conference had voted for his expulsion. The men had since repudiated that action. There were about six men, who, with Cabinet, dominated the party today. After the people had given Parliament a mandate no group of gangsters should, be able to enable Cabinet to avoid putting that policy into operation. Recruiting For The War. Mr. Fraser had said that Mr. Barnard could not be trusted to recruit, Mr. Lee said. He remembered a pamphlet in the last war, in whjch a child said to its father: “What did you do in the •war, daddy?” He wondered that Mr. Barnard did not reply to Mr. Fraser. “What did you do in the last war?” A collection taken up at the meeting realized £33/12/-. The following provisional Wellington executive was elected:

President, Mr. P. Connors; vice-presi-dent, Mr. W. G. Bishop; secretary, Mr. F. M. Earle; treasurer, Mr. A. H. Carman; committee (with power to add), Messrs. W. W. Gordon, A. E. Yarker, Geo. Bignell, J. J. San'der, A. F. Hansen, F. Barrett, Mrs. C. W. Taylor, Mrs. J. A. Lee, Miss M. Guy.

MR. BARNARD’S ACTION

Criticism By Harbour Board Employees Dominion Special Service. NAPIER, May 1. The action of the M.P. for Napier, Mr. Barnard, in resigning from the Labour Party was criticized by the Napier branch of the New Zealand Harbour Boards’ Employees’ Union at its annual meeting. According to a statement issued to the Press, the following resolution was adopted unanimously “That this branch of the New Zealand Harbour Boards’ Employees’ Union strongly deplores the action of Mr. Barnard in resigning from the Labour Party, and desires to affirm its complete confidence in the present Government.”