THE Kaipara Advertiser, AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1912. UNITED LABOUR.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 1 May 1912, Page 2

THE Kaipara Advertiser, AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1912. UNITED LABOUR.

There is no doubt that the men who have led tho confeience of united Labour proved themselves first-rate fellows. No one, for example, could be more amiable than Mr Mills, known as " professor," and no one could have combined strength and slimness more ve-thily than the Hon. J. T. Paul, At the same time there jsliffcle doubt that the ba>is of unit}' is as vague aa the immediate objects, Mr Mills explains this by declaring that the official'pro nounceniGnt of the programme of the united party was premature, everything, including the emphasis of proportion not having been sufficiently thought out. Still the oidi.nary man

has some right to put thhigs together by way of comparison. For example, there are the two paragraphs about strikes. Of these, one commits the association to the principle of compulsory arbitration, -while the other declares that from the Arbitration Court" there can be an appeal to the strike. Now to the ordinary mind this look's very much like asking for an appeal from the Court to the mind ot one of the parties to its judgment. If not, then, what does it mean? Plainly it. looks like the laying down of a principle with a safeguard against its application for the benefit of those who required enticing into the association. Then there is the military question. Mr Mills expressed approval of the compulsory scheme, and declared against it, and subsequently tried an explanation which only fogged the matter all the more. Nevertheless, the members of the conference were delighted with the results, and are talking of there as the beginning ola real millennium. For our part we admiro the optimists who are always seeing millenniums. But to support them we require something more definite than the two ends of a contrary platform. Befort. getting the world .to accept the initiative Referendum and the recall—we presume of judges as well as members of Parliament —the world must Lave some definite proof that these excellent gentlemen know something more about their own minds. The wild advanced section like the miners aie left out, we note, but it is not clear that the strike is not taken on.