Correspondence.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 November 1912, Page 3

Correspondence.

[Our correspondents' opinions are their own; tho responsibility of editorial ones makes sufficient ballast for the Editor's shouldersj

LABOUR LKADERS CRITICISED. (To tho Editor.) Sir,—Mr Murdoch asks mo "What about the United Labour Party? This body will soon outnumber the Federatiunists by the thousands. Professor I\lills. .McLaren, Hindmarsh and Tregear are surely an improvement on the Wcbb-Semple--olover combination." My reply i.s that from a bourgeois point of view they certainly are, and also that quality is what is required, not quantity. Mr Murdoch does not

mention Thomas Walsh, of tlio Auckland Executive, till recently the organiser of tlio "scabs" at Waikino, Waihi and Huntly. Mr Trcgear is a good and a bio man, though too far beyond his prime for strenuous fighting". On important questions his old friend's influonce (liberal) is likely to carry a. greater weight with him than the ILL.P. Mr McLaron was intende<l by naturo for a parson. Mr Hindniarsh is a good fighting Radical. Professor Mills possesses the kind of cleverness that can be depended upon in time .to lead the Labour Party into tho ditch. It would be a mero platitude to say that a straightforward Tory opponent is always preferable to a clever Labour misleader. The indiscriminate aim for mero members of a medley membership bought at the expense of strenuous militancy and adherence to principle is tlio fatal weakness of this so-called Labour Party. The results can be predicted. A team of politicians holding various and conflicting views aro elected, more sagacious statesmanship and hair splitting, great things done for the workers (at election time; anything but get off their backs). More compromises and sophistries and moro nostrums. After ten years the worker will be on the same spot and tho rich richer and more strongly entrenched. Another capitalist Liberal tail to be chopped off, and the work to do over again. At that distance any nnbaised critic of understanding. looking back on its career (if it lias a career) will prove the truth of this prediction. Tho Professor Mills and United Labour Party may be compared to a machine fit for the scrap-heap after its first trial.—Yours, etc., : H. LEGER.