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UNITED LABOUR PARTY.

(Conducted by the Dominion Executive Council.) The Easter Conference of the United Labour Party voted to make no paper its special organ, but to provide official news and comments to any paper promising to. regularly publish the same. The paper is not responsible for this column, and the party assumes no responsibility for any utterances of the paper except for its own official utterances in this department. The National organiser's trip to the South Island was most satisfactory The Dunedin meeting was a great success. Almost the whole body of special workers remained after the public address for- a special session, and things are under way for the formation of a provisional body which will push at once the preliminary work for the municipal elections. The same thing happened in both Timaru and at Christchurch. At Christchurch an effort was made by an organised group to make impossible the public discuspion of the United Labour Party, but the police was called, order enforced, the message given and the most enthusiastic meeting of workers never held in Christchurch was held at the close of the address. There can be very little doubt about it. Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington will be sure to be carried by the Labour Party in municipal elections. We have had councilmen in all of them, Mayors in some of them, but the programme is now is a Mayor in each of them, with a good working majority in the Town Councils at their backs.

While it ia certain that this can be done, it is equally certain that it cannot be done unless those interested in seeing it dons keep busy, stay busy, and are busy with things that count. Mr Smith continues his very effective organisation campaign in Wellington. It is greatly to be regretted that at an early date, on account of family affairs, he will be compelled to take a brief vacation, but Chapman ia on his way home from Great Britain, Sullivan goes to work next week, and new men in the south are getting ready, with the result that, within the next month it is certain there will be not" less than four assistant national organisers constantly pushing the work. In three months the number ought tc~be carried to a dozen, If that can be done in six months and these men kept busy, with proper support we will not only carry the principal seats ain the municipal elections, but we will build the machine that will elect the next Parliament. En route the other day up from Dunedin, a couple of farmers on the train, learning that the National Organiser was aboard, looked him up, asked for a chat, and the chat was a hundred miles long. But the farmers, went away loaded with literature, declaring that the land policy of the United Labour Party would be the bsst of all policies possible to apply in New Zealand. That was their present impression, but they were enthusiastic for its further study, and they took the tools to do it with.

McManus is taking a rest, and this is the way he is resting. He is earning his living at his trade_ as a general labourer. But he has already in h?.nd one new union of more than 200 members, and another on its way. The Dominion executive will vote a vacation to any working man in New Zealand, who will earn his expenses and create new union even with half the number of members that this new Dunedin body is sure to have, and which McManus is helping to create., The call keeps coming for a United Labour Party representative on the West Coast. The Furniture Workers are sending an organißer, Dan Sullivan, to the West Coast, and he goes with authority to sppak for and to act for the United Labour Party. _ Those wishing to communicate with him or to co-operate with him while on the coast can reach him at the Trades Hall, Christchurch. Mr Veitch is in with a call for a new trades union in Wanganui. So mote it be. Syd. Smith reports things moving in New Plymouth. McHugh had splendid meetings throughout the North Island. He has done splendid work in Wellington. He will be sailing on the Bth, and will carry personal messages to friends in America from the writer of these notes.

OUR POSITION.

CLEARLY STATED BY HON. FOWLDS. In the Farmers' Union Advocate for some weeks past the Hon. George Fowlds has been engaged, against conisderable numerical odds, in a correspondence on the taxation of land values. The letters for and against have frequently run, all told, to six or eight columns in a single isßue. In the Advocate of October 19th, Mr Fowlds writes: — "It is manifestly impossible for me, with any consideration for ■your valuable space, to reply in detail to the six columns or so of criticisms in your issue of September 28th. But a detailed reply is, happily, unnecessary, for the criticisms are for the most part absolutely beside the mark. My position is (1) that the farmer, like every other land-user is morally entitled to all the improvements he makes inland and to all the wealth he produces from the lan,l (2) that all his improvements and all the wealth he produces should be exempt from taxation both local and national; (3) that, on the very same principle that the farmer is entitled 'to all he produces, the community-created land values arising from the presence, growth, collective Industry, enterprise, and expenditure of the community; (4) that, instead of. taking the farmer's private earnings for public purposes such public earnings, and such alone, should be taken for public purposes; (5), that land monopoly

and land speculation grievously handicap the farmer by forcing up the price fo his raw material, the the land (G) that taxes on improvements penalise the working farmer for the benefit of the idle speculator; (7) that excessive railway freights, taxes on improvements, taxes on necessaries and especially the so-called 'protective' taxes which put a tax of 20 to 50 per cent, on the farmer to 'protect' town industries, are grossly unjust to the farmer, and enormously overtax and hamper the farming industry. "Let your readers compare that position with the very different positions attacked, for the most part, by yourself and your correspondents, and they will see how very much beside the mark their and your criticisms are."

And, dealing with the supposed necessity for "protective" tariffs, Mr Fowlds declares that—"Where State aid is needful for any industry, a State bonus is a far cheaper, far more effective, and far more open and above board method of giving State aid."

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/KCC19121106.2.38

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 515, 6 November 1912, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,118

UNITED LABOUR PARTY. King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 515, 6 November 1912, Page 6

UNITED LABOUR PARTY. King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 515, 6 November 1912, Page 6

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