LABOR INFLUENCES

Hokitika Guardian, 13 June 1929, Page 1

LABOR INFLUENCES

Dr. Haden Guest, who withdrew Ifrom the Labour Party last year because of the license permitted to “left wingers ” and Communists, has said that “ in a struggle for power on vital issues inside the Labour Party it is the revolutionary Left which wilts and the Modemtc Bight which gives way.” And unfortunately Mr MacDonald, with great intellectual ability and many fine personal qualities, does not seem to possess the courage and endurance needed to hold his own against tlie persistent efforts of the extremists. In his recent interesting criticism of the Labour movement. Dr. Guest has pointed out that the tendency of the Labour moderates to yield to the extremists has been already illustrated in a very striking way. Mr MacDonald is too intelligent a man to pin his faith on “direct action” and a violent revolution, and -Air Snowden is too good a financier to believe in lavish extravagance in the use of public funds.

Yet, says Dr. Guest, “-Air MacDonald has been compelled to support Bolshevik policy at borne and abroad in the past, and Mr Philip Snowden has been compelled to support pauperisation plus reckless finance in the past” ; and he adds, ominously enough, “ they w :, l have t>do so again in the future.” It is all very well for dofenders of Labour to say “look how moderate Air MacDonald and Mr Snowden are.” Dr. Guest asserts that “when the time for decision comes, the moderate man does not count, and Air Lansburv becomes more important than My MacDonald or Air Mr Snowden.” Early this year Dr. Guest, after an intimate personal association with Labour and its loaders, declared tliat “ if a Labour Government were formed in this country in the next few months, it would inevitably be pushed more and more to the Left.” Is this to bo the final destiny of the .MacDonald Govern meat?