Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1917. THE CAUSE OP LABOUR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1727, 19 June 1917, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1917. THE CAUSE OP LABOUR.

TIIOSH who :ire serving the cause of Labour and oL‘ freedom are not the MacDonald* and Snowden.*, but the Hendersons and (jumpers; not (lie Storeys and Tudors, but the Holmans and Hughes; not the Semples but the Veitches, says (he Wellington Host. In Ids address in Auckland Mr Veitch correctly pointed out that in New Zealand we have anarchists at each end of the scale —the anarchists ol' reactiort and (he anarchists ol spurious progress. These false progressives are, says our contemporary, reaction’s greatest political asset. They so misrepresent and slander (he platform of progress and the name of Labour that average political opinion either reacts i ; n the other direction or turns away from both in disgust—an attitude that possibly explains why in this country the great passport to Parliament is mediocrity, in the great middle body of public opinion—estimated by Mr Veitch at HO per cent. —there is abundance of political ideas and men worthy to carry them out. Hut the men will not touch present, parly politics; they are occupied with their own careers in avenues less hollow; consequently (lie best men and the best ideas are both missing. In a conflict between upper and lower factions, in which the fanaticism of Ihe one serves the self-interest of the other, the middle body of opinion, according to Mr Veitch, is side-tracked, and “has very little say in politics,” His idea that a ■sane Labour Party can form a rallying point for progressive democratic sentiment is perfectly feasible,’ provided that Labour can exclude the anarchists-and widen its horizon. Hut so long as demagoguery rules, so long as liberty is cherished in form instead of in substance, so long as war conditions accepted by (he American democracy are not good enough for the class-conscious anti-nationalists who masquerade as champions of Labour, that name will not be one to conjure with among a people whose abiding characteristics is loyalty to' law and to the Imperial idea, and love of righteous peace and orderly progress.