“NEW ZEALAND LABOUR.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1629, 26 October 1916, Page 3

“NEW ZEALAND LABOUR.”

ADVICE TO AUSTRALIA. The following manifocto “To the Workers of Australia” has been issued by “The National Executive of the New Zealand Labour Party . “The organised workers of New Zealand ai’e opposed to conscription. Every representative body of Labour in the Dominion has declined against it. A large and rep: es’entative Labour congress held in Wellington in January of this year, issued a strong 1 , comprehensive and unanswerable manifesto against it. The New Zealand Labour Party Ims the repeal of the recently-passed Military Service Act on its platform. In this country there is no section of organised Labour in favour of conscription. The people here were given no opportunity of expressing their opinion on conscription. It was thrust on them by a Coalition Government which combined the inherent vices of Toryism and Liberalism. In determinedly fighting Conscription the workers of Australia are fighting the battle of the workers of Britain and Europe as well. Therefore, the New Zealand Labour Party wishes the organised workers of Australia success in their courageous and strenuous stand against the forces of militarism and capitalism. It applauds their fine, thorough, and determined attitude, and will hail their success as the most hopeful event of a dark and depressing period. Conscription is the negation of liberty. If is tbo strongest weapon of capitalism. Every worker who votes for it is voting for the further enslavement of himself, his children, and his class. Every worker who votes against it is striking a blow for liberty. Workers of Australia, your opportunity is great. Yon can hurl back the foi’ccs of militarism, yon can help the cause of humanity. To your own selves he true. Vote against conscription.

“For the New Zealand Labour Party: —J. M’Contbs, M.P., president; J. M’Konzie, vieo-president; J. Clover, secretary-treasurer; 1). W. Coleman, ex-member; J. Dowgray, ex-member; P. Fraser, ex-member; H. E. Holland, ex-member; B. Martin, ex-mcraber; Mrs E. R. Al’Comhs, ox-member; A. M’Carthy, exmember: J. T. Paul, M.L.C., exmember; W r . E. Parry, ex-member; R. Ross, ex-member; .Mrs S. Snow, ex-member; R. Semple, ex-member; J. Thorn, cx-memhor; A. Walker, ALP., ex-member; C. W. Webber, ex-member.”

The Wcllinglon i’os!, commenting on the above, says:—

“In yesterday's i.-siie we wrote: ‘lf Labour is wise it will cut anticompulsion out of its wav programmo —so far as the great mass of lho

workers is concerned this improvised plank lias never had any real vitality —and will put heart and soul into a struggle where everything dear to democracy is at slake. Labour Ims to eiioose between nationalism and elass-eonseiousness; between constitutional polities (with order) and syndicalism (with anarchy) ; between leadership and mobrule.’ At the lime this was written we were not. aware that the National Executive of the Labour Party of New Zealand had issued an anticompulsion manifesto to the workers of Australia; nor would we regard such an action as credible were it not vouched for, with quotations, by our contemporary the Otago Daily Times, and as we have since noted by the Afaorilaml Worker. According to the Times, the manifesto has eighteen signatures, including those of the Hon. J. T. Paul, AI.L.C., Air J. APCombs, ALP., and Air A. Walker, M.P., ‘along with those of several men prominently known as “Red Fed’’ leaders in the Dominion, and of a few lesser lights/’ Also, the manifesto declares that ‘the organised workers of New Zealand are opposed to conscript ion.’ This declaration, and the assumption of authority behind it, recalls the pronouncement of the celebrated three tailors of Tooley-street, who spoke in the name of the British nation. We have not had time to go into the. .figures, but it will probably he found that the organised (that is, unionised) workers of New Zealand are barely a third of the male population between the ages of 15 and 70. Of that organised minority, how many are represented, in any form at all, by the ‘National Executive of the Labour Party of New Zealand’? And even where the Executive may, by some process of secondary representation through unions, assert some sort of a representative claim', does that entitle it to express the opinion of those unionists for whom it professes to speak on the vital question of compulsion? The Executive appears to argue that New Zealand’s approval of compulsion cannot he assumed without a vote like the Australian referendum. But has the Executive taken a secret ballot on the question among its own alleged followers? If not, what right has it to assume an anti-compulsion attitude even within the narrow sphere of its representation? Quite possibly some unions itave met, at the behest of some ruling cliques, and have passed resolutions, but the absence of a popular conviction against compulsion in New Zealand is proved by the complete lack of vitality in the anti-compulsion movement. If that dog really wished to fight, there are quite several individuals in New Zealand who would have ‘sooled’ it on; in fact, whose business it is to do so. But instead of making their case good in their own country, the ‘National Executive of the Labour Party of New Zealand’ offers free advice to the workers of Australia, evidently

for the purpose of misleading Commonwealth publie opinion ns to the attitude of Labour in New Zealand. When the Executive has something to press upon its own put the, il generally eontrives to make a good noise for that purpose; but this manifesto to Australia did not, sec the light till last week, and its unheralded appearance leads to the suspicion that it is intended solely or mainly for Australian consumption. By the time that the hackwash comes in New Zealand, by the time that the workers of this country realise how they have been misrepresented to the workers of Australia,, the ‘National Executive of the Labour Party of New Zealand' may hear something’ about itself; but probably, by then, Australia’s compulsion vote will have been taken and the ‘manifesto’ will have served its purpose, ft appears that the authors of the manifesto find compulsion in New Zealand to be the. result of ‘a coalition Government which combined the inherent vices of Toryism and Liberalism.’ One thing’ is certain —m New Zealand Toryism and reaction have no more valuable allies than the Red feds, and the anti-conipulsionists. By alienating’ the l moderate progressive, they render to reaction a service that is actually beyond price. They are the stone round the kitten’s neck —the standing obstacle to the development of a constitutional Labour party under sane leadership, a parly which would tight, ‘Tory’ vices where they really exist. And if ‘Toryism’ has any reason to feel grate hi I to anyone, its gratitude is surely duo to these uuremuncrated allies who never weary, iu season and out of season, of lighting its battle and buttressing its privileges.”