UNITY CONGRESS COMMITTEE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 559, 16 April 1913, Page 3

UNITY CONGRESS COMMITTEE.

CONGRESS CONVENED FOR JULY Ist, 1913, AT WELLINGTON.

(The matter in this column is supplied by authorised advocates of the Baßiß of Unity adopted by the Trade Union Conference, which met in January at Wellington. The writers of the articles are alone responsible for the opinions therein expressed).

THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND ITS PRINCIPLES.

The following 9 has been adopted by the Unity Congress Committee as the Statement of Principles of the proposed Social Democratic Party : STATEMENT OP PRINCIPLES. The Social Democratic Party stands for the common ownership of all the collectively-used agencies of wealth production and the control of all industrial affairs on the basis of production for use. It affirms:—

| 1. The greatness of a nation deI pende on the greatness of its people. 2. The greatness of the peoplw depends on the physical power the roe.*)' tal capacity.the moral character, *and the economic independence of its aver ! age individual. 3. These qualities depend for their highest development on the best educa- ! tional facilities ana the best economic advantages for all, and the largest sense of social responsibility on the part of 4. The present capitalist form of society rests on the private ownership and hence the private monopoly of land —■ the primary source of wealth production—and of the machinery and tools with which wealth is produced. 5. This form of ownership, with its resulting lack of equal opportunity, divides society in all countries into two distinct and opposing classes —the workers who by brain and hand produce all wealth, and the exploiters who by the power of monopoly based on the private ownership of things collectively used are able to appropriate without service the products of the toil of others.

6. The workers, by far the larger class, are brought into industrial dependence on the exploiters, by far the smaller class, with consequent political subjection to them. The workerß produce all wealth The ex ploiters appropriate it, and return to the workers only a fraction of their own products in wages of some form.

7. It ia because of theße conflicting class interests between the' workers and the exploiters that class antagonisms are generated and the worldwide class war is made inevitable.

8. The Social Democratic Party does not make this class war. It is compelled to recognise its existence because it understands its historic and economic causea. It seeks to make an end of the economic cusea of the classes in order to make an end of the class war.

9. Because of the monopoly power of the exploiters, in spits of the multiplication of labour - saving machines and improve I methods of industry—which cheapen the cost of production—the share of the producer grows ever less, while the prices of all the necessities of life steadily increase. The high cost of living is felt in every home. Thousands of wage earners have seen the purchasing power of their wages decrease until life haa become a desperate battle for a mere existence. The working farmerß are plundered as ruthlessly as are other workers. The extortion of the money lords, of the transportation companies, of the land monopolists, and of the commercial combines, with their evsr increasing prices exacted for land, tools, credit, transportation, and for household supplies, are rendering the working farmers' lot unbearable.

10. Because of ths monopoly power of the exploiters, the workers are exposed to unhealthy conditions in their homes, to frightful and needless perils to life and limb in the place where they work. Biassed Arbitration Court decisions and unjust laws hamper the workers at every turn, while measures which are designed to assist the workers are often so juggled with that they become instruments for their oppression.

11. Because of the monopoly power of the exploiters, the educational op portunities of the workers and their families are limited. The schools, especially the secondary schools, fail to teach the honour of social service, the dignity of labour, the shame of uselesaness, and the sense of loyalty to the common good, while they foster snobbery and promote class distinctions of the most hateful nature.

12. In the face of these evils, so manifest that all thoughtful people are appalled at them, the old Parliamentary parties are able to offer no relief; instead they defend and perpetuate the very things which have created these evils. The growing unrest in New Zealand bears eloquent testimony to the inability of the old parties to satisfy the people's needs. 13. This is true because all parties are the expresison of economic class interests. All other parties than the Social Democratic Party represent one or other group of the exploiters. Their political conflicts between each other represent merely their superficial business rivalries However they result, these conflicts have no issue of real advantage to the workers. Whether Liberal or Tory *win the exploiters are always victorious. 14. The Social Democratic Party is the political expression of the workers. Itß defeatß are their victories. It is a party founded on the economic needs of the workers, and is the outgrowth of the laws of social development. 15. In the face of the industrial and political aggressions of the exploiters, the only defence and he only means of emancipation left to the workers is the power of their industrial and political oragniaations. The social Demo cratic Party urges the wage earners to combine for industrial action into one industrial organisation, and all wage

earners, the working farmers, and all other useful workers everywhere, to combine for political action into one political party. ,16. So organised the workers may not only wrest immediate and temporary concessions, but they will be able to abolish industrial exploitation forever, and to substitute the industrial and social administration of collective interests by the people, of the people, and for the people, The workers in achieving their own deliverance will emancipate all the race, and in this the Labour movement will transcend all other movements in human history.

17. The workers of New Zealand must take their place in lma with the organised workers of all other countries. There is no deliverance from the rappidly increasing evils of Capitalism short o f Hi complete overthrow, and this can be accomplished only through the industrially and politically organised strength of the educated and united workers themselves.

18, The Social Democratic Party therefore calls upon all the workers of New Zealand to forthwith enrol them selves in the ranks of the United Federation of Labour on the industrial field, and in the ranks of the Social Democratic Party on the political field,