FEDERAL LABOUR PARTY.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1918, Page 4

FEDERAL LABOUR PARTY.

AUSTRALIAN BOLSHEVIKS AGAIN SYDNEY May 1. ■ ITow deeply the Australian Labour Party, or :j powerful section of the clique that supports and speaks for it, is imbued with Bolshevik ideas, is shown by a manifesto which the Party has issued in connection with a byeelection campaign which is proceeding in Victoria. The first paragraph re peats the parrot cry of peace by negotiation, and expressly repudiates any hope of, or desire for, an allied victory. It runs as follows: “ The Labour Party stands for peace by negotiation. To peace by negotiation the world must come. Thos who will not recognise this are putting off peace for years. Peace with a German victory is impossible. The Central Powers cannot heat the Allies. Peace with a British victory is impossible. The Allies cannot beat the Central Powers. 'The Labour Party believes that the Tiumilation of a nation creates Jn a people a spirit of revenge, which breeds future wars. The German rulers must be left to the German people. They alone can destroy German militarism and autocracy. And we believe that the prolongation of the war only postpones the hour of the triumph of the German democracy.”

So the Labour Party proceeds to call for a “cessation of fighting,” and states its “terms of peace,’’ which, in a general way, are much what the Russian Bolsheviks humbly asks the Kaiser for—and did not get. But the most interesting nart of this precious manifesto is that denouncing the proposal that the German colonies in the Pacific should not be handed back. Here it is : “Our trading' classes want the German islands in the Pacific just as th have always wanted the French islands. They would annexe New Caledonia just as readily as they would take the Solomons. But the traders are not the people of Australia, nor is their press the voice of the Australian people. Australia has nothing but responsibility to get by becoming mistress of a Paeilic empire. She has much to lose. .She would he committed to a policy of militarist Government and commercial exploitation of uncivilised islanders. The difficulty of her domestic problem would distract the people’s attention from the government of the islands. Democracy and Imperialism go ill together. Her danger would he increased. The more European nations* are interested in the Pacific the less Australia has to fear.”

There is more of the same sort of piffle, but that is sufficient to show the mentality of the men who would govern Australia in the event of the present not very admirable National Government going out of office-