ANOTHER LABOUR PLEDGE BREAKER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1124, 22 July 1913, Page 4

ANOTHER LABOUR PLEDGE BREAKER.

On the ground that he has broken the pledge taken when he stood for a seat on the Wellington City Council as a United Labour Party candidate, certain members of the party in Wellington are urging that Mr Edward Tregear should be called upon to resign from the council forthwith. “I hold that if Mr Tregear has got any honesty at all he should resign without Surther ado,” said a prominent U.L.P. man to a New Zealand Times representative. It was ascertained on enquiry that no definite steps have yet been taken to bring the matter to a head, but that something is likely to be done shortly. The reporter was told that this was one of the developments of the recent so-called “Unity” congress and a move in the struggle between the two existing Labour organisations.

Mr Tregear’s acceptance of the presidency of the new political organisation, the Social Democratic Party, appears to be the cause of the present trouble. It is stated that the platform and principles of this organisation differ on most important points from those of the United Labour Party, which Mr Tregear pledged himself to uphold. “The position is just this,” the reporter was told, “that during his term of office as a councillor Mr Tregear has changed over to another political party altogether and, not only that, but has taken the most prominent position in the latter.” In the pledgejMr Tregear signed he agreed to accept and loyally adhere to the principles, rules, constitution, objective and platform of the United Labour Party, and bound himself, if elected as the party’s candidate at any election, to do his utmost to carry out the principles embodied iu the party’s platform. Members of the party claim that it is impossible for him to carry out this pledge and retain the new position to which he has been elected.