Auckland Activities.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 16, 23 June 1911, Page 6

Auckland Activities.

PROF. MILLS AND THE SOCIALISTS.

Professor W. T. Mills has come and gone. He arrived on Sunday, June 4t-h, and was met on the wharf by a goodly number of Socialists and Laborites. That evening he -was present at the Opera House to hear H. Scott Bennett lecture on "Woman, To-day and To-morrow." At the close of his lecture Com. Scott Bennett warmly welcomed Com. Mills, and the audience of over 2000 people endorsed every word that Com. Scott Bennett said. Prof. Mills, in thanking the audience and Scott Bennett for the welcome they had given him, said that in meeting Scott Bennett he had met one of the men in Australasia he had been most anxious to meet. He also said that the gathering he saw that night impressed him more than anything of the kind he had seen in Australasia, because, he said, "You are not here because you are excited over an election, but you are here because your are interested in a subject, which it will .be my pleasing duty to endeavour td interest the people of New Zealand in yet a little more during the time I am with you." The Socialist Party Executive met representatives of the Labor Party and tried to make some mutual arrangement with regard to Prof. Mills' lectures, but wero unable to do so, as the Labor Party, through its representatives, refused to allow the lectures to be run jointly under the auspices of the Labor Party and the Socialist Party. It must either be all Labor Party or they would take another theatre and run entirely apart from the Socialist Party. And this was what was done, for tho Socialist Party has been at considerable trouble in the building up of the audience which weekly assembles in the Opera House, and could not now stand aside and let Socialism be preached from tho same platform, but under another name. Yet I think had the Labour Party known what was to com© from Mr. Mills they would not have objected, for although I listened very carefully to three of the four lectures delivered by Mr. Mills, I failed to find any difference between his programme and the programme of the N.Z.S.P., but I did find many points wherein he differed very much from the programme of the Labor Party—or at least from the programme of some of those who expound the programme of the Labor Party.

Mr. Mills succeeds in making the problems of economics so intensely interesting that ono feels as though one could listen for hours to him, and all the time be sure that something was being learned • and at the same time he contrives to introduce such humour into it—not for the purpose of pleasing the audience alone, tor always his jolies convoy a meaning—so that those who would otherwise sullenly accept the arguments, with the proiessor's jokes they laughingly acknowledge that he has beaten them, and laugh at their own stupidity in not seeing that they were wrong before, so plain does Mr. Mills make his points. To every Socialist in New Zealand I would say "Go and hear Mills/ and you'll be a firm believer in Socialism over afterwards. And to every Labor Party man I would say "Go and hear Mills," and you will wonder why you are outside the Socialist Party. And to those who are neither Socialists nor Laborites so far, "Go and hear Mills," and Socialism will be made so simple to you that you'll wonder however you camo to misunderstand it at all.

A branch of tho N.Z.F.L. has been formed in Auckland, and already has a good membership. We intend to preach industrialism not only amongst ourselves, but also w© intend to get to the meetings of unions that have not yet embraced the new unionism and endeavour to show them that their only hope of industrial and economic salvation lies in the organisation of themselves on class lines. A strong feeling for industrialism already exist® in many of the unions. Only a little education is necessary and we shall havo here in Auckland a strong body of industrialists that will be a credit to the workers of' Auckland, and also an example to the workers of other cities.— Tom Blood worth.