LABOUR’S DANGER SIGNAL

Hokitika Guardian, 14 November 1929, Page 8

LABOUR’S DANGER SIGNAL

(Auckland Star.)

For some time past it has been ovi- . dent to those who follow the course ol British politics carefully that the danger which most seriously threatens Mr MacDonald is not the ever-watehful hostiltiv of Mr Lloyd George, or the possible reanimation and resurrection of Mr Baldwin, but the threatened revolt of the “ left-wingers ” in the Labour' Party itself. -Before the new Government had. been three months in office the “Clydeside men were complaining that it had made no serious difference to anybody, and at the Labour Party Conference held at Brighton six weeks ago ample opportunity was afforded the malcontents to expend their wrath upon the Ministerial culprits. When the Brighton Conference opened, Ministers in general, and Mr Thomas, in particular, could plead with justice that they had not yet had an opportunity to carry their programme into effect. -Air C'lynes protested that “there is so much to do.” Mr Henderson told the conference that no government, with the best will in the world, could possibly give effect to all its pledges at once. Mr Thomas, fol-t lowing on the same lines, argued that neither he nor any other Minister could find work for a million unemployed within a few months. All this amounts to a perfectly legitimate and rational excuse, and even their political opponents might feel some sympathy for the position in which Ministers have been placed by their inability to carry out | their pre-election promises so speedily, as their more enthusiastic followers j desire. j It must, however, be admitted that | the machinery set in motion by tne j Minister in Charge iff Unemployment has not worked so far with much rapidity or success. Up to the beginning of i October the Government had expended a ni'llion pounds in putting 4000 men on relief works, and Parliament had sanctioned the expenditure of £44,090,000 which on the same basis would absorb less than 200,000 —considerably less than 20 per cent of the total mass of unemployed. Great expectations were apparently built on the statement of policy which Mr Thomas has dehv- I ered this week. But though Mr Thomas - has spoken at length of great public! works now under consideration, it is evident that lie has no definite hope of i relieving the situation permanently in | this way, and he has had to fall back upon the possible extension of foreign markets and the growth of inter-imper-ial trade as Labour’s best chance for the future.

Now all this is disappointing to the country at large, but it is much more disconcerting to the Labour Party; and those who have been led to expect “Socialism in our time” are bitterly resentful at their disillusionment. After listening to Mr Thomas on Monday, Mr Maxton remarked that the Labour Party would need to be in office 20 years to carry out its promises at this rate of progress. But this is mild criticism compared with what Mr Thomas had to endure at the Labour Conference. After Mr Thomas had made his promised explanation, Mr AVheatley observed caustically that he had heard the same speech three times before—from Mr Baldwin. As a matter of fact, as the “ Saturday Review ” said at the time, thei'e was nothing in the speech that had not been said hundreds of times by the Conservatives. But though this may console Mr Baldwin and his friends, it is cold comfort for enthusiasts who have been taught to believe that the advent of a Labour Government would herald the industrial millennium.

The tone of the Labour Conference, the vehement attacks made by Mr Maxton and Mr \Vheatley upon the Government for its lethargy and apathy, the uncompromising attitude of the miners under the implacable Herbert Smith, and the fervid declamation of Mr Bevin in favour of a more vigorously .Socialist policy—all these things indicated clearly the direction in which events are now tending. Labour’s “left-wingers” regard Mr Thomas’ plea for delay as a further proof that “capitalistic” methods have completely failed to meet the emergency, and they therefore demand “ Socialism in our time ” more insistently than ever. But Ministers cannot forget that Mr Lloyd George is pledged to join hands with the Conservatives if the MacDonald Cabinet “goes Socialist,” and this is the rock on which Labour’s hopes are most liable to shipwreck.