The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1929. A PORTRAIT OF LABOUR.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1929, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1929. A PORTRAIT OF LABOUR.

One of tiie most renlarkable contributions to British political literature in recent years is the analysis and description of the British Labour Party which appeared three months ago, written by a distinguished German Socialist. What is remarkable about the book, says an exchange, is not only tne keen political insight that it displays, but the strongly sympathetic tone in which it is written. For the author, though evidently a prqduct of Marxist Socialism himself, expresses his undisguised admiration for the distinctive characteristics of British Labour., and predicts for the party a most successful future in their attempt to realise Socialist ideals. Dr "Wertheimer’s first personal introduction to British Labour politics took place at a meeting addressed by Oswald Mosley, when Labour was in office five years ago. What amzed him most was the emotional character of the speech and strong appeal that it made to the feelings of the audifence. In Germany, he tells us, no Socialist would have dared to address a workers’ meeting in this fashion “without running the risk of losing for ever his standing in the party movement.” For among the German Socialists there is “one traditional party style which the officials of the party under penalty of ‘the loss of their authority, dure not depart from.” In Britain, Labour is individualistic, temperamental, emancipated completely from the rigid dogmatism which binds the Continental Socialist firmly to the traditions of his class. But an even more astonishing fact, in the mind of this Continental critic, was tne outburst of enthusiasm which i greeted Mr Mosley and his wife when | they rose to speak. In Germany, says

Dr Wertheimer, it would' have been “unthinkable” that such a man, “a recruit, a typical aristocrat, a renegade,” should have been so greeted by an assembly of ' Workers. And when Lady Synthia Mosley was introduced the audience broke into a rapturous acclamation of"applause. Strange, indeed it seemed''' to this German Socialist that the“ ! members of a trade union should “point with pride to the fact Tiiat Lord Curzon’s daughter is standing before a workers’ assembly,” and that' any resentment that they might have expected, to feel at her “cultivated easy well-being” was submerged in their satisfied consciousness that “by men of their class and in their name the mightiest empire of the world ruled.” Subsequent experiences served only to confirm Dr Wertheimer’s conviction that the strength of the British Labour Party lies in the fact that “it reflects the national character of the English people, undeterred and untroubled 1 by the other Labour parties of the world.” Because it is not fettered or hidebound by Marxist dogmas, “because it .is completely unencumbered by philosophy, theory and ' general, views of , v life,” therefore it is more adaptable than the German Socialist “more popular, more able to absorb people who are outside the immediate framework of the working clasfe”’ And because of these things British Labour is endowed with “ah immediacy‘in its consideration" of 'practical questions such as no other So-ialist movement possesses.” All this was written before the last election, ancf'therefore before the advent of Britain’s second Labour Government. But Dr Wertheimer’s survey of the Labour Party and his estimate of its character have been confirmed and justified by the course of recent events. He insists all through this ; book that" the British workers will never follow, the lead of an influential section of the Continental proletariat 1 and throw themselves into the arms of Communism. “Their instinctive understanding of the difficulties in the way of the accomplishment of a better order of society,” and “their superb loyalty to the leaders of their choice,” will enable them always to resist the allurements of extremism. This German Socialist sees deep pathos in the inarticulate heroism of the unemployed who, even at starvation point, have proved themselves “too proud, ; too conscious of their human dignity,” to turn Bolshevik. And because of the virtues that he has observed in British Labour, its strong individualism, its self-reliance, its invincible courage, and its practical common sense, he predicts for it “incomparably greater chances of attaining and realising power” than any Continental Socialists have yet enjoyed.