LABOR PARLIAMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1440, 28 April 1905, Page 2

LABOR PARLIAMENT.

• .(Per Press Association.) Wellington, last night. The Political and Labor League Confer, ence resumed last evening. The Hon. J. Rigg, the president, stated that the strength of the League was 1206. He denied that the League had been organised for deposing the present- Government or Mr Seeldon. It sought to have fair labor, representation on munioipal bodies, and a strong labor party in Parliament. The oanditates at the forthcoming general election, he said, should recognise that a new factor had arisen in political affairs. If the League could not get a candidate of its own, it could at least keep out one whom it did not approve. The following planks were agreed to as a fighting platform: Periodical revaluation of all Grown lands held on lease, this not to apply to existing leases until the death of the present leasebolder or transfer of lease to another as the case might be; abolition of sale of Crown lands; resumption' of land for closer settlement to be at tho owners’ valuation for taxation purposes, plu3 ten per cent., tenants to have an absolute, right to . their improvements : nationalisation of the , tobacco industry; State, bank with sole right of note issue ; Parliamentary franchise to apply to elections, of. all local bodies and municipal proposals ; a referendum with initiative in the hands of the people; abolition of the Upper House; „ elective Executive ; preference to union-/ ists ; cessation of borrowing,. except for '' l redemption and completion of works already authorised by Parliament; uniform set of school books to be printed by the Government and issued to children attending the public schools of the colony at cost price; equal pay to males and females ; public defenders in oases, of indictable offences and misdemeanors. A proposal to alter the previous plank, giving Labor candidates a free hand on the liquor and fiscal questions, was lost, and the plank was approved as originally printed in the objects of the. League Later. —The Trades and Labour Conference continued its sittings'to-day, and it was resolved that the Government be urged to issue legal tender, notes for the * purpose of completing the unfinished main trunk and other important railway lines and other, works with the view to providing a permanent currency as a medium of exchange for internal trade ; , that the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration' Act be amended to provide for . statutory preference to Unionists ; that the Act be atnsnded to enable a stipendiary magistrate to adjudicate in cases of breaches of award or industrial agreements, with power to appoint two experts, or in alternative, that an Arbitration Court be set up in each Island; that all State employees be brought under, the provisions of the Act.