THE Maoriland Worker

Maoriland Worker, Volume 1, Issue 5, 20 January 1911, Page 1

THE Maoriland Worker

JANUARY 20, 1911. A GIANT—BUT A RUPTURED GIANT.

One of the most pitiable sights within the sphere of New Zealand politics is the ruptured giant of labour. In comparison with the other numerous interests of this country that seek protection and power upon the floor of the New Zealand Parliament the labour interest is, under the existing conditions, the most pitiable. The land-owning interest, apart from those land-holders who possess only residential areas, is numerically weak, but the parliamentary power of the large land-owning class is enormous. Out of a House of 76 members there are probably 60 members who jealously keep watch over the interests of land owners. Their vigilance is never relaxed. They strenuously seek to prevent taxation from falling upon the primary producers ; they are staunch supporters of the system of protection under which the wage and salary earners of the country are so disproportionately taxed Avhen compared with the proportion of the country's revenues which are raised from land tax. The land tax is to-day rather less than a million, and the Customs taxation is getting well on to four million pounds per annum. They not only watch the interests of the land owners in regard to this all-im-portant matter of taxation, but they also support with both hands concessions in railway charges upon agricultural manures and products, the expenditure upon the grading of dairy produce, the subsidising of steamship companies, with a view of finding markets for the primary producer, and the abolition of Customs duties upon nearly all material and appliances used in the production of wealth by the farming class. In this and other directions the 60 members of the present Parliament, who are the whole-souled servants of the land owning interests, never sleep. The political power that brings this remarkably cohesive political party into being is never ruptured, never divided in its purpose or its power. You never find one section of the community representing wealth fighting another section. They may have their differences of opinion with regard to details, but with regard to the main object, namely, the production and protection of wealth, they are as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. Yet their voting strength at the polls is comparatively unimportant when contrasted with that of the wage earning and salaried classes. If we could only make the men and women who are working for a daily wage on farm, in factory, in foundry, in offices, in shops, in warehouses, or at the desk, the tens of thousands of women whose time is constantly devoted to the care of the home and the family— all of whose political interests are essentially one and the same—realise that the floor of the New Zealand Parliament is a battlefield upon which privileges are won for classes or rights established for the masses, this unhappy condition of things with regard to the Labour vote in this country, which thousands of earnest men and women deplore at the present moment, would suddenly cease to exist. The Labour

vote to-day in New Zealand, disunited, controlled by the spirit of controversy, vexing itself over mere trifles of platform detail, is deliberately refusing to seize its natural heritage and enter into the land of promise that manhood and Avomanhood suffrage brought within its reach. We believe that the differences of opinion to -which Aye refer are in the main held by honest men. The disunion that results from these differences of opinion hurts every man. woman and child Avhose well-being depends upon the conditions and the remuneration attached to daily toil. The Labour Party, until harmony governs its councils, is inflicting wounds upon notliiug but itself. It is a giant—so far as its dimensions go—bigger out of all proportion than any other voting power within the dominion, but want of unity effectively hinders its political progress and disinherits it as a force within the country's politics. There is yet ample time before the next Parliament is constituted for the application of a radical cure for the rupture which to-day makes the giant of labour impotent and almost ridiculous. We urge upon the many earnest leaders of the conflicting sections, that in the aggregate represent the interests of Labour, to grasp hands and instantly to resolve that the cause they represent in this country shall no longer be a feeble, but shall within the year 1911 become an irresistible force. Such a result can only be attained by the sacrifice of opinion at some points, and personal ambition at others; but the man who refuses either one or the other at this crisis in the interests of his class is neither honest nor wise. Every man who declines to lend help to bring about the creation of Labour's rightful power, influence and dignity as the dominant political force in this country's politics is a foe to his class and a friend to every class hostile to the worker. Not only does the question of wages enter into this matter, but every other political issue would be invigorated and furthered if the virile power begotten of experience inherent in the wageearning class, who do the world's work but who do not yet get their rightful share of the world's? wealth, was brought to bear in its rightful political proportions upon the politics of the country. Education, taxation, land settlement, the protection of child life, the control of the essential food, shelter and clothing of the people, the provision of necessary recreation and the enrichment of life generally are matters that the Labour Party to-day is scarcely influencing in this fair land because of the want of unity amongst its leaders. This should not longer remain as a reproach. Let the year 1911 witness the birth of a new political force. We do not object to minorities either of opinion or representative of wealth having due representation in the country's Parliament, but we do protest against the folly and wickedness of a majority of the dominion's population —and the workers of New Zealand in all their various occupations form a vast majority—being practically without parliamentary representation at all, as is the state of things to-day. The watchword of every worker, passed from mouth to mouth daily, on the street, in the workshop, office, factory, social gathering, should be, "Unite! Unite! Unite!" and if this course is followed the general elections in 1911 will possess significance for the men and women of New Zealand greater than any general election that has ever gone before, and will at the same time prove a stimulus to the workers in every other portion of this wide, wide world.