LABOUR PARTY CONTROL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2864, 28 March 1925, Page 4

LABOUR PARTY CONTROL.

WIIAT IT MEANS TO IN- ( DUSTRIES. The New Zealand Labour Party (which is definitely Socialist) with its twin brother the Alliance of’ Labour (a Syndicalist organisation) have one policy relating to the industries of tlfc Dominion. It is based on a class conception and is stated in the Alliance Constitution as “control of all industries by the workers who operate them.” It is trifling with the intelligence of the people to say, as the Labour politicians do, that this is not bolshevism. It is beyond question, the plan which the bolshevists of Russia put into operation. Mass control of the industries has a certain attraction for Socialist minds. The Alliance named, “goes the whole hog” in this matter. The party seeks to approach it by stages as it, lias to consider votes. The former would swallow the pig whole and the latter wants to take it in rashers. People must not imagine that either are moderate. They both aim at despoiling the present owner!-; and managers. As an approach to this mass control the socialist party referred to places this demand in its platforms:— “Wjhere national ownership of an industry is effected, all labour for such industry and at least half the Board of Control in each case shall be apopinted by the Union or Unions affected.”

As a side light on this policy of the Slate, and the ultimate taking control of all the industries by the operatives, it is notable that these Socialists and “Industrial Unionists” are frequently engaged in crippling the very industries they want to sec taken over. Whether they think that the price to be paid will be reduced by destroying the present value, or whether it is mere bad habit arising from their fever of class hatred, is hard to determine. The .Miners Union strike against co-operation; the sticking up of ships at various ports; the claim to work just as they please, no matter bow the industry suffers, these are some recent examples of what the public can look for in mass control of the industries under Union or Federation direction. Mr. .). B. Clynes the BritLabour M.P. savs:—

“If workmen deliberately reduce the* volume of national wealth by lessening the output they reduce their chance's of raising the standard of living.” Mr. Alex, M. Thompson, Editor of the “'Clarion” in December lasi, said :

"For seven years up lo 1906 they lost three million working days per year by industrial disputes. The next, eight years the a mum I loss was twelve ( and a half million. During the war the average was’ fear and a half million, but from fill!) to 192-1 it wns thirty-six million." Then Mr. Thompson adds: — “Think of the waste, the burden oil industry, the effect on essential security of contracts. \\c are taxed two or three times more per head than any other nation on earth, and on top of that we arc cartying the handicap of these constantly recurring, ruinous, and invariably futile strikes. What good can they do? Whom do they bene;!t ! In defiance of such advice from their friends the Red Labourites, both in New Zealand and at Home, keep on with their destrucltive work and those most outspoken for “workers control” are most disposed to leave little for anybody to control.

RUSSIA’S SAD EXPERIENCE. Russia Inis had over seven years of Socialism. From 1017 to the end of 1921 there was so-called workers’ control. M orks Committees and councils lmd charge of the industries. There were all the conditions advocated by Socialists as cures for poverty. Wlmt were the results? The Labour office of the League of Nations luts collected and collated the facts. A summary of the whole position is that “The system milled in industrial paralysis and intense human suffering. Taking the last norma! year under Capitalism (1013) and the mime under “worker’s control" (1021) we find industrial production in tons standing thus: —-. Y‘)J.3. —Coal: 35,800,000; Iron ore: 10,640,000; Pig Iron: 4,237,000; Steel: 4,240,000. 1921. —8,500,000; 144,000; 114,000; 316,000. Similar results ocrured m other industries. Mass control bad to be replaced with one man control to save the people from utter starvation. Li is surely lime that the Socialists of New Zealand learnt this b-ssoii. Until they become rational 1 1,, people will do well to prided themselves from the destructive proposals their party puts forward (Contributed by the New /calam Welfare League.)