VI.—UNITED LABOR PARTY.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 75, 16 August 1912, Page 5

VI.—UNITED LABOR PARTY.

To the writer the unexpected happened when the United Labor Party associated itself with the employers, tho law-mongers, the capitalist press, and other antagonists of the men on strike and locked-out. In the test, the United Labor "Party found itself also wishing to crush tbe Federation of Labor, and it has sought most energetically to defeat tlie strikers in tho design to finish the Federation. " Professor" Mills. Hardly had the strike been declared when ''Professor" W. T. Mills, national organiser U.L.P., hurried into print to excuse the mutinous enginedrivers of Waihi. Next in an interview in tho "Evening Post" of Wellington, he asserted that- "tlie strikers in Waihi are certain to be b n nten." Then be publicly lectured in Wellington on the strike in order te illustrate the superiority of the Labor Party to the Federation, suggesting that under the Labor Party the "blunder" at Waihi could not have eventuated, and remarking that if strikers, women and children were starving at Waihi, it was their matter. The Trades Councils. Anticipating the militant and fraternal support of organised workers throughout tlie Dominion, the. F.-L. issued a manifesto to them, and followed it by seeking to address unions on tho trouble. Plow the Trades and Labor Councils of Wellington, Auckland, and riiri.s'.chiirc.h N nnd elsewhere betrayed their class is to be .found in their re-

solutions. 'I'll*' AVollinj'ton Council <\oculal th.it it wns no 1 : in-ojmrorl to assist in any vny, nor could it recommend its ;iffilintions to nssisl. It forwarded tin's lcsolutioiL ii'i'l ;m <>:pl:iii;!lion of it to thn Tr:id<'s Ciiiincils of Sydney find MHbournc, iho Federation having been

driven to appeal to Australian unions for aid when "turned down" by the councils of its own country. The. Auck-* fand Council went one better in its coih demnation by advising Australia that the strike at Waihi was not a labor dieput©, but one of intimidation on the part of the Waihi Workers' Union. Thli Christclrurch Council heard a detega* tion from tho Federation and decided tjk take no action. The Wellington Sea* men's Union declined te financially as« sist the strike, and proffered help t« R«efton if Reefton would repudiate tHf> organisation of which it was a parti Other unions published refusals of aid, sad the newspapers overflowed witty jubilant chronicles 'anent the fading Federation and the doomed strikers. . How differently things have worke(! out is well known. All these council! and unions referred to are with tho United Labor Party.