Exploitation By Flattery?

Hokitika Guardian, 21 May 1921, Page 1

Exploitation By Flattery?

THE CRY OF LABOUR! LABOUR! LABOUR!

Tile Red politicians of Now Zealand are adepts at tho game of flattering the populace. They are for ever crying out to the people we are your friends, your only friends. In order to try and secure tho votes of tiie wage-earners in the mass, which they have never been able to accomplish they resort to flattery piled upon flattery. In fact they so overdo that sort of thing as to make the rank and file hesitate and question whether it is not well to beware of such flatterers.

Labour! La hour! Labour! remember workers we are it is the incessant call of the Holland-Frnser Revolutionary

Party. It is a sad commentary for them that the actual workers who got their living by other means than talking do not, to any great extent, respond to this call. The Press, the politicians, and many of the general public may not understand what the great mass of wage-earners fully know; that there is a clear distinction between “Labour” as defining the wholo body of people who give useful service and “Labour” as the name taken by the section of the people who subscribe to tho Socialist Revolutionary doctrines of the misnamed “N.Z. Labour Party.’ The former is truly “Labour” but the latter is only a. party of political theorists masquerading under an assumed name which does not rightly below to them.

Because some Labour Unions are affiliated to this party many people neglect to learn tbe truth that the great majority of such Unions in New Zealand are not attached to this party in any way. A little attention will show that the Bed party leaders are for ever pleading that they shall he judged on their words. In effect they say, do we not name the workers as “the source of all wealth;” “the only class worth considering”; “the body and brains of the nation” ; surely our loyalty ought to he rewarded. Still the workers in the mass respond to all this flattery with tlm blunt query “how much do you want r ’ After all it comes hack to the position so wisely defined by Abraham Lincoln. « Ynu can fool some of the people all the time and all the people someofthe

time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

The wage earners are no different to other people. They want romthing more than words, no matter how flattering they are .It is in the colonial mind of our people that a good deal of cant and humbug is attached to this cry of “Labour! Labour!” although the wor.l is all right. When our people find a man like Colonel Mitchell; M.P. devoting himself earnestly and practically to questions ot housing, unemployment, superannuation, works of development and other definite affairs in the interests of the people, whilst Mr P. Fraser, M.P., is spending much tim 0 in airy exhibitions of his own verbal smartness, they are bound to ask “why is Fraser - called ‘Labour and Mitchell not? Is not Colonel Mitchell a better Labour man than any of the Reds? Yes, the democracy has supreme trust in the words “by I heir work shall ye know them. The people cannot long be exploited by flattery for amongst tho mass there is always a substratum of common sense that ultimately wins by direct, practical application. “Labour” in the sense of service fill can respect, but “Labour” merely ns a political catchiry is not Labour at all; it is simply the political camouflage of a party that is afraid to use its own name--Social-ist—and adopts a respectable alias to cover its real character.

(Contributed by tho N.Z. Welfare League.)