LIBERALS AND LABOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 4, 6 January 1936, Page 6

LIBERALS AND LABOUR

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Having read in "The Post" of Saturday the letter of Robt. E. Vaney, I may remark that in some respects his surmises and conclusions are not entirely correct. Until July, 1898, I was not actively engaged in the Labour movement, nor was I associated with the Trades Council until 1902, consequently anything done by the council prior to then would not be within the ambit of my personal intimate knowledge. There is no reason, therefore, to combat the information furnished by Mr. Vaney that the annual conferences of Trades Councils.in 1898 and 1899 carried a resolution for the independence of Labour in politics, but it must be manifestly plain that nothing at all was done to create the independence by giving practical effect to the resolution, and that it was allowed to remain in its seclusion in the minute book after "The Post" had administered its journalistic guillotine to the proposal. Immediately prior to the General Election .of 1899 I was the honorary secretary of "The Wellington Workers' Political Association," its sole object being to secure the election to Parliament of direct representatives of the workers. In the 1902 General Election Mr. P. J. O'Regan stood as an independent candidate for Wellington in opposition to the candidates ox the Liberal-Labour Party, I being the secretary of his election committee. Mr. Seddon used every effort to secure the retirement of Mr. O'Regan, but failed entirely, and he went to the poll, merely losing by some 300 votes. In 1898 1 had joined the Socialists Group, a body engaged in Socialist propaganda and not participating in party contests. Those activities in opposition to the Liberal-Labour Party do not bear out the statement of Mr. Vaney that I was a saunch supporter of the Liberal-Labour Government and opposed to the "formation of a proposed Independent Labour Party in the years mentioned. In the same years Mr. Vaney was a prominent member of the Wellington Council, and held the office of secretary prior to my associa-; tion with it in 1902. While he speaks of "proposed" matters only per resolutions, if am in a position to speak of a proposed matter and its realisation in addition, which is the difference between the 1898 and 1899; resolutions and the 1904 one, upon which the Wellington Trades Council is credited with forming, in New Zealand the first branch of the workers' independent political labour movement. At the 1904 councils conference I proposed a six-hour day, but it got no further than a proposal, in which respect it was entirely similar to the resolutions of 1898 and 1899 mentioned by Mr. Vaney. One with a knowledge of working-class history would be most ungenerous in failing to acknowledge the beneficial results to workers through the legislation of the Ballance and Seddon Governments, but the,ambition of many of us was that the workers should throw away their political crutches and support their bodies with their own legs. That was commenced in November, 1904, and although I have not the date, Mr. Vaney will find the report of the meeting at the Trades Hall in the November file, 1904, of "The Post?' and also its editorial ridicule of the movement. My letter in "The Post" on January 2 contained no reference to falling off m legislation by Mr. Seddon, but pointed out that in the final five years of his life he was disposed to go back on the legislation of Ballance and himself, meaning that it was not being accorded the same sympathetic administration as previously. It is not my desire to be drawn into a discussion of extraneous detail, but I surmise that Mr. John Fawcus was selected by Auckland workers for inclusion in the ticket of the Liberal-Labour Party in accordance with usual procedure, thereby making him a Liberal candidate pledged to the Liberal platform, in making which the workers were Consulted, and that Mr Vaney and others desirtd that he should be so mcluded. However, it certainly was not the independence of the workers in politics, nor was the action of the Wellington Council in asking a distinct party to support him. The workers of this or other countries have their own mental capacity equal to any other political class, and m my judgment there is no need for them to beg legislation and its administration when they can perform both for themselves.—l am, etc., W. T. YOUNG.