PRACTICAL POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1145, 11 September 1913, Page 3

PRACTICAL POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

EVOLUTION V. REVOLUTION. An Appeal to Wageworkers and Employers, to Capitalists and Professional Men, to Exploiters and Exploited. [By George Fowlds.]

“The Unity Conference,” wrote Prolessor Mills in the article in the Weekly Herald of April 10th, 1912, already quoted in these articles, “is the largest, the most representative, and the best-spirited gathering of the whole body of the useful people ever brought together in New Zealand. The miners, the seamen, the watersiders workers, the general labourers will not stay out of this organisation- Those who for the time only are using these great organisations to promote the rejected programmes of Australia and America will lose their power as their programmes collapse here, as they must collapse here and everywhere. : The time will soon come when all New Zealand will fall in line.”

This, I believe, is as true to-day of the United Labour Party as it was true then of the Unity Conference.

TRAITOR POLITICIANS AND AGITATORS.

It is, I believe, even more true to-day of the United labour Party than it was of the Unity Conference. when Professor Mills wrote the words in regard to that conference, that “the politician who would betray, the agitator who agitates in order to agitate and in the end betray, are alike without voice or influence in it.’’ Professor Mills himself has now neither voice nor influence in the United Labour Party. I trust that, to use the Professor’s own words, “in the political to-morrow they (these traitor politicians and agitators’) will be without influence in all New Zealand.”

But to-morrow is not yet. It is now to-day; and to-day these traitor politicians and agitators—these revolutionary unionists, syndicalists, direct actiouists, anarchists —are with us, and the position must be dealt with no faltering hand.

revolutionary methods HOPELESS.

It is for this reason that I desire to convey to the minds of all the dangers to which society is exposed by the spread of revolutionary doctrines, aud impress upon all how utterly hopeless it is to look to revolutionary methods for any real and lasting improvements in social conditions. It is for this reason that I wish to draw attention to the rapidly-growing conviction amongst the workers ' that it is hopless to expect any really worth while reform of social conditions by Parliamentary and means ; and I wish to voice the warning that the despair arising from this conviction must cause, and is indeed causing large numbers in every country to listen to the anarchistic teachings of Syndicalism and Revolution. That such teachings find many

ready listeners even here in New Zealand is, I believe, due (1) to our faulty electoral system which has hitherto prevented the workers of this country from being represented in Parliament in proportion to their voting strength; (2) to the disappointment arising from the undoubted, and by many of us expected, failure of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Acts to really and permanently improve the wage position of workers ; and last, but by no means least, to the failure OF OOR POLITICIANS to grapple with any adequate, root and branch fashion with the monopolies and privileges by means of which the idle few exploit the toiling many—monopolies which, by forcing up rents and prices, have time after time nullified all advances of wages won by the workers. It was because of this failure that, after long “hoping against hope,” I at last left the Liberal Government. It is because the U.L.P. gives promise of the drastic political action required that I a® proud to number myself in its ranks.

A.t the time of writing there are, at the outside, only four Labour members in the New Zealand House of Representatives, whereas, in proportion to the votes cast for Labour candidates at the last general election the number of Labour menbers should be ten. From this it js very clear that our present electoral system does not give Labour a square deal. And the same applies to our local governing bodies. To this is due in large part the growing feeling amongst the workers of hopelessness in regard to political action. Proportional representation—a bill lor which I Introduced in 1911— will give the workers the electoral square deal they are entitled to.

WANTED : A POLITICAL AND AN ECONOMIC SQUARE DEAE.

But, even then, the “House of Lords” stands in the way. This “fifth wheel to the legislative coach” should be abolished ; and by means of the initiative, the Referendum and the Recall, the electors should be kept at all times touch and full control oveEboth legislation and legislators, while, by the adoption of the Elective Executive system, Parliament, instead of being controlled by the Oovernmeot, should be given control over the Executive, Jo that vital national issues may be decided on their merits instead ot being settled by mere party Wire - pulling. , Only by such

measures can we get rid of the deadly reaction—fostering revolution —breeding slowness of our political machinery, both national and local.

But such measures are in themselves only machinery. They are not the end, but only the means to the end. In order to secure a political, an industrial and a social square deal, we want (i) the government of New Zealand by the people for the people, instead of by the monopolists for the monopolists; (2) the untaxing of the people and the taxation of land values instead, so that the land values produced by the whole of the people shall be taken by the whole of the people for the whole of the people, instead of being wrongfully pocketed by the monopolists for the monopolists, and so that what is produced by the individual and therefore rightly belongs to the individual shall be left sacredly to the individual, free from landlord tribute and free of of all taxation, whether national or local; (3) the abolition of every vestige of exploitation, by the abolition, or, where that is impossible, by the public ownership and control of all monopolies by means of which man exploits his fellow man. MONOPOLY IS THE ENEMY. As I have already stated, it is these monopolies that by forcing up rents and prices have hitherto nullified all advances in wages won by the workers whether through the Conciliation and Arbitration Courts or by other means, and have thus forced the workers back in despair on the strike methods of the old trade unionism and the revolutionary methods of the new “industrial” unionism-

And of these monopolies the greatest and the worst is land monopoly. So long ago as 1904 Mr Edward Tregear (then secretary to the New Zealand Labour Department), but now president of the Social Democratic Party, the political Siamese twin of the revolutionary United Federation of Labour, in a memorandum to the Rt. Hon. R. J. Seddon, then Premier and Minister for Labour, referring to the manner in Which the higher wages and other benefits arising from the operation of the Conciliation and Arbitration Acts were “rapidly becoming neutralised,” stated that there was

“A THIRD-HAND IN THE GAME.” “The fact is that there is a third hand in the game besides the employer and employee, and it is this third man, the non-producing ground landlord of the city and suburban property, who alone will rise a winner in the end. “The chief devourer of the wages of the worker and of the profits of the employer, is excessive rent a greedy

rack-renting system, which transfers gradually almost the whole earnings of the industrial and commercial classes to the pockets of the non-producer, is indefensible. It partakes of three characters: It is unauthorised taxation by private persons, it is tribute to a conquerer, aud ransom

of a captive. . . . There is reason for the State to interfere to prevent the exploitation of its citizens, and the draining of the earnings of the community into the possession of a few private persons, “It is beyond doubt that the advantages bestowed by progressive legislation are gradually being nullified, and will eventually be destroyed by certain adverse influences. Those influences must be sought out and neutralised fearlessly and effectively in the interests of all classes of workers, i.e., of the vast majority of the citizens of the colony.” And this was confirmed by Mr Seddon, who, addressing the Australian Labour League at Sydney, in 1906, shortly before his death, declared that “up to the present the labour laws of New Zealand have benefited one class only, and that, the landlord class,”

EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE EXPLOITED IN COMMON.

It is greatly to be regretted that Mr Tregear, who showed thus clearly in 1904 that employer and employee were exploited in common by the non-producing ground landlord, “the chief devourer of both the wages of the worker and of the profits of the employer,” should in 19x3 have so far torgotten himself as to endorse the lying' I.W.W. preamble which, without reservation or qualification of any kind, declares that “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common.”

Manifestly it is in the common interest of worker and of employer alike that they should get rid of the “chief devourer” of their earnings.

Manifestly, also, a course of action which is “in the interests of all classes of workers —i.e., of the vast majority of the citizens of the colony,” only needs to be put clearly and effectively before the electors to be carried by an overwhelming majority ; and there is, therefore, no excuse for the coquetting with revolutionary unionist methods of which Mr Tregear is guilty to-day. As an illustration of the third hand in the game, here is the actual experience of an Auckland manufacturing firm. The business was started over twelve years ago, and is at present employing from 180 to 200 workers, and between ,£25,000 and £30,000 of capital. Part of the capital employed is loan capital on which interest at 5 per cent, and 6 per cent, is being paid. The manager of the business is recognised all over New Zealand as one of the ablest managers in his line of business in the Dominion. No

interest has ever been paid out to the shareholders, and the total accumulated profits for the twelve years to the date of the last balance-sheet was

One of the shibboleths of the revolutionary section ot Labour is ‘‘that you must fight the employer at the point ot production upon the job.” In this case “at the point of production” the total amount available for distribution amongst the employees, even if no interest be paid to the shareholders’ capital, would be less than 6s per annum to each employee.

The other side of the shield is this : The firm in its early history bought a section of land, on which It built a factory. The land was bought at ,£ls per foot frontage, and is now saleable at £bo per foot, with a strong p-olnbility that it will fetch twice that sum in a few years in consequence of city improvements. The net result between employer and employee of twelve years’ work is a profit of £585, while the unearned increment in land value is between and with a prospect of the latter amount being doubled, while the former amount might easily be a diminishing quantity. When will people open their eyes to see the true cause of social injustice and social unrest ?