PUBLIC ADDRESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 16

PUBLIC ADDRESS.

AN ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION. In the evening Mr Keir Hardie addressed a very large audience; in th« Alhambra Theatre. The chair was taken by Mr H." Westwood, president of the j Trades and Labour Council. On the _ stage there were the Hon. J. T. Paul.

M.L.C., Mr J.- P., Arnold, M.P., an< half a dozen other gentlemen!' tThe Chairman said that they had aekei / the Mayor to preside and take an officia part, but he had" refused to do so — (Groane consequently he, as president -" of thi Trades and Labour Council, had had to talc tne chair in place ofc the Mayor. He ha< always understood' the Mayor's positioi was that he could take part in the pro ceedings of any . representative body. 7 (Applause.) He understood they paid nii] about £400 to defray- his expenses. v Well thai was pretty good. Me had not ddm much for it yet,, and he (the speaker) ha< freen disappointed", wKen. IJe^Trefused to taki the chair, "-.-Ip yrafe a' ship in the -facce to: the. Labour -party in Dunedin. It wa left to ■work. ; oufc-;its > own -salvation. ' Severa had-beeii:. published which ha< been prby'fed to pis untrue,-- and these wer< the^cause of "the May° r >'ot being present • Repealled" upon them to give a welcome t< Mt Hardie.— (Loud and continued ,ap plause.) > . -i" -, V, -, " „ ~ ' ,Mr J.. W. Munro, 'president of the Poli tical Labpirr ; "Leagues-welcomed Mr Keu - Hardie, whose -motto; he said, liad-alwayi been, .'.'.What- can -J -do for the Laboui pajjrty, -not what the, Labour party can dc foR me." -' _ ' , -s|r .Keir Hardie joiet with a very warn reception, and it was some moments befon he' was. permitted to speak. He preface* by' offering his congratulations on the ap pearance of the city. .He had wajkei through the streets of most of our cities an< had_ sought out the ;working-olass quarter; and- had .endeavoured to see the actual con ditiom of iitbour -and the life of the work ing.people. 'people in this new dominion, and hi very „< sincerely . congratulated the/ working amen " kif N«w Zealand on 'their ' lot beinj cast in such nleasant places. — (Applause. It" "was true there was poverty— (" Hear hear " — but the principal poverty here con oisted of individual cases. .As many of then: knew, in the -Qld Country .there was a «reat sodden mgss of poverty, and Sii Henry Campbell-Bannerman, before the last general .election, had stated' Jfiat ther* wers 13,000,000 of people at Home whe were either under or on the poverty line— ("Shame ")— and the poverty line meant thai the whole of the family's earnings when fully -employed would not produce the same , atandard; of comfort in the home as was obtained in the prison or the poorhouse. They -had over 30 per cent, of the people at Home who, with full employment, were worse off than they would be if they were paupers in the poorhouse or criminals in the gaol; while t|iey had nothing of that kind here, and he hoped they never would liftve— ("Hear, hear ") ;— if they ever" had it would be entirely t.heir own '"fault. In a country so- bountifully endowed by Nature it would be nothing' short of criminal to allow the conditions that obtained at Home to grow up here. Reference had been made to the action of the mayor in refusing to accord him an official welcome. Might he be allowed to repeat here what he had said elsewhere when the mayor had .made a similar refusal. He had Lad receptions in- which official personages, who disagreed with almost every item of his programme and his principles, had been forced to say pleasant things about him out of courtesy, •nd hoy feeling very uncomfortable, had been forced, for the same reason, to talk state platitudes, and he was always grateful to the official who refused to put himself in a false position. — {" Hear, hear.") For another reason he was not- sorry for the mayor's absence. It might teach tne working people of this part of the Dominion that, if they wanted official welcomes for Labour members, they must return Labour mayors: — ("Hear, hear," and- applause.) He ha(i selected the Labour movement in the Old Country as his topic, because many of them were from the Old Country, and all of them had ties more or less binding with these remaining behind at Home. Moreover, the movement in the Old Country was not an - isolated factor, but part of a great world-wide movement which wm rapidly becoming the despair of the oppressor of men's labour and of the working people. Until quite recently it was thought to be presumption on the part of the working people to aspire to any office, and he ■was- jurt old enough to remember the last big franchise agitation at Home, which culminated in 1884, when the franchise was extended to the counties. He remembered the arguments used against extending the franchise. The same arguments had been used in 1866: that the common people— the mob, the working class — was a, great, wild, dangerous wild beast. Let them remember he was using the exact figure of speech used in the Music Hall in Edinburgh in 1883. The great wild beast which had to be kept down had developed out- of sight. That was the argument used and the opinioi held ooricerning the working people, but the franchise was extended, and for over 20 years the collier, the farm labourer, the artisan had found himself in" a. position of political power for the fitstrtime, but. went mi Mtuming ■ the same" 'clase of ' 9**. to

d the House of Commons ~sb . had' been there before the franchise wSs .extended. '"Bui d recently a change Lad come over the spirii 1 of the working class in the' Old Country, ;) and the men and women who made up the c working class were beginning to realise thai c so long as they wer*! content to acknowi ledge themselves an Inferior class by sending a the rich man to make the laws for them i- they could not expect justice to be done to - them.— (Loud applause.) It was in consen . quence of that feeling and for other reasons I,- they had the, growths of the Labour party, c The foundation upon which the Labour party $ ■ was buil<? "was trades, unionism', *nd so c. long as the system obtained .of the award r of labour- being fixed upjin.Jbhe market a^ trades unions would, remain - a necessity . V That—^was.- the,, .foundation upon which i ' the whole of the working a classes" emancipation- must ''be iuilt up. .. when the .worker- learned • solidarity in the x trades- union movement -he. soon learned -^to - carry;" that. , same \"«>lidarit.f . linto politics, and . whenv he had - reached that -stage he - .was near- that .points^»trwhich\ he 'would c -enter into" his -own/ Aril^' thai the trade i 'union ""movement did -!w4s '^to give the r best possible conditions under existing > circumstances, but the trades unions had no control over those circumstances. In 1 this connection the speaker cited 'the New , York financial crisis, brought About by | Stock Exchange gambling, altogether outside the influence of the workers, but whioh j. had been the cause of 125,000 workmen j being thrown, out of employment. In the ship-building trade in Great Britain between 30,QQ0 and 40,000 skilled artisans had been thrown out of employment be- ' cause the output of, ships had exceeded the demand— a circumstance «ta much beyond * the control of the workers as was the \ Wall, street gambling in New York, ' Therefore, whilst he strongly advocated ' trades unionism, he did not end there. Trades unionism was a beginning, but only a beginning, and the workers at Home were now beginning to realise that, and at the " last election sent 31 members to the Houee ' of Commons separate and distinct from ' either the Tory or the Liberal parties. — * (Applause.) The ■ Labour party eat in the ' House of Commons in opposition to all fc Governments, no matter how composed, J and the Labour party would continue to ' sit "in. that position until the .time came— 1 as it would ' come, and sooner than their opponents wished — when they -would be £ ' majority of- the House and would be able 1 to oross the floor and formv a Labour 1 Government— (Loud applause.) Speakingof Labour representation, Mr Hardie stla 1 it was no use electing a working man as 1 a. member of the House merely because he was * working man. Unless there was same distinctive "reason for electing a working man, they might as well save their money and keep ttw man at home. In New .Z&aland it , was comparatively easy to return a working man. _ Here we had payment of election expenses, adult suffrage, and payment-, of members; but j in England 'they had none of these things, | and there in the first place an election cost from '£soo to £1000T He was in no hurry to see payment of members introduced, because when the .workers themselves paid their parliamentary representatives they had more interest in the men they sent to the House of Commons and more control over their actions. When the Taff decision was announced making the funds of unions liable for damages for every illegal or alleged illegal act committed during * strike, the Labour party in the House, decided to have the law altered in that respect, *nd succeeded in oarrying its bill against the previauslyexpreseed opposition of the Government, who had introduced a bill .which it announced was the furthest it was prepared to go. Had the Labour party been 35 units of the Government party, instead of beinj? a. separate party by itself, with two million voters behind it in the • country, it could not possibly have achieved the carrying of that bill. — (Applause.) One- strong reason for the political independence of the workers was that it compelled the working class to recognise itself ! as a factor in politics. He ventured to j say that had the Labour party come into existence 10 years earlier than it did that crime known as the Boer war in South j Africa would _ never have happened. — ! (Loud applause.) Politicians, the press, [ and the pulpit, where they were not silent, | all spoke with one voice : that patriotism demanded that the war should be foug-ht. i ■ To-day they knew that patriotism had a ' yellow skin and wore a pigtail. — (Laughter and" renewed applause.) The object of the war_-in South Africa was not the Empire, but cheap labour for the mines. I — (Applause.) But merely to have a Labour party to formulate working-class opinion was not of itself sufficient. The working class at - Home was, as a body, ' more hefpiess than -were the shackled slaves of America before emancipation. He bad read tnat in the old days in America whete dangerous work was" to fee performed paid white labour' was em- 1

'ployed, and for the reason that if 'the 6 ! paid white employer was killed there was t the end of it, but if a slave was killed , another had to be bought to take 'his 5 place. — (LaugTiter.) The worker at Home t at the present time was absolutely at the . J mercy of forceß over which he had no r i control. He was idle 25 2 er cent, of his I j time, and the average income of the vrork- > ' ing class of Great Britain worked out at . j 21s 6d per week, and out of, that allow5 I ance had to be made for bro&en time for . illness, accident, and dull tta.de. Under r these ■ conditions, -ooujd they wonder that > a feeling of revolt was growing up in the [ J Old, Country which, whilst it gladdened ; ' the hearts of some of them, was carrying j dismay into, the ranks of -the- privileged , ' classes. "If -the cquntry was poor the - ' workers would bear their share of the ', poverty " without grumbling, and do their ) sharfe o*f *■• the work ''and take their i .share of the* .but so far from - that being the case,- tjiev- were told' -year > -after year that the- wealth of the country- [ was increasing at the rate of £200,000,000 > per annum. . In _the midst of this the i condition' of the workers, instead oj; improving, was steadily deteriorating. v The working class and a very large section of the educated middle class we're no longer content to aceeptfthat state of things as if it was ordained by Providence.— (Applause.) The working class movement at Home was very broad and Very comprehensive. it was not merely men and women who plied the shovel or the pick, or worked with the needle. It took in all members of the community who were dependent upon wages for a livelihood, and who had a common cause with the working man in seeking. t© win better conditions for them : selves and their descendents. What did this mean? It meant Socialism.—(Applause.) The foundation in the life of the Labour movement was trades unionism, and the inspiration and driving power was Socialism. The private ownership >pi land and capital was the direct cause of the poverty that obtained, and so long as land and capital were privately ownedand were used for the exploitation of the toiler there oould be no , permanent improvement in his condition- The Conservative party at Home had "just discovered a oure for poverty, and they called it preferential trade. Out here thfey had Wages Boards, and Arbitration Courts, and in Australia they had now excise duty, one of' the tnost hopeful experiments "he had yet heard *bout, but their experience here, like that at Home, would teach them that neither Protection nor Wages Boards, nor Arbitration Courts we,re a permanent cure for the poverty of the working classes. He wished them to remember he was not saying a word against Wages Boards or Arbitration Courts. Wherever methods could possibly be employed to settle disputes, by all means let them be employed, but they must not mistake temporary expedients for tiding over a crisis to be a permanent oure of the causes that produced the crisis. What •was meant by Socialism? Many arguments were brought forward against Socialism, and yet he had said a thousand times, and repeated it, that if there was no other argument extended for Socialism except the Sermon on the Mount they had it all there, — (Applause.) Socialism took no cognisance of man's religious opinions. It embodied c ptolioy concerning the protection of life, and had no more to do with religion than Liberalism or Conservatism. As to the. charge of free love levelled against Socialism, when they saw the hundreds of thousands of women oomipetled to fp> out from their homes so that their ohidren might have bread, and knew that in Lqndton 7&.000 women were certified as being prostitutes under the present 6ysten», it lay ill upon the lips of the upholders of that system to charge Socialism j with immorality. He was old fashioned enough to believe in the home life, and he I wanted to see conditions prevail that would allow of home life.— (Applause.) The Socialist desired that the land should remain the property of the nation for all time — (" Hear* hear.") — and should not he alienated to private individuals. So, too, with capital. The Socialist said that should be entirely the property of the people, and that industries should be carried Ito provide for the needs of the [ people. Th© Socialist believed in ' a common ownership of laud and capital. In New Zealand, with its sunshine and its magnificent rivers- and its fertile lands, . life might be so easy, but if they permitted their land and industries to grow up as private concerns, the most that could be expected for the workers was a. bare subsistence. Socialism, they were told, was an impossibility. Nothing was. impossible F to those who had the courage to go out ' compel it. Gn& of his strong argu- I *m.ents was that Socialism gave young people something to ■ work for. It took . , them away from the racecourse, from the . tbtalisator, from the drinking bars, and from everything, which demoralised -th«m. It gaye 1 them - an, ideal which required a, sacrifice in ~ striving, for,, the ideal tha^

! were uplifted and ennobled. They wer< > told that Imperialism supplied the ambi I tion and- spur to deeds of derring do i Imperialism, he repeated, was one of thi i . dashers the Labour movement had t< > batile with most incessantly. He did no • j -believe in, nor would he be a party to > tputtmg a barbed-wire fence round certaii ■ I parts of the world and saying that al > i within should be with them and ail outsid< • [ were their enemies. That was not the idea • , of the Socialist movement. — (Applause.) H ' j wanted to see the time coming, and i ■ ! was coming, when the working classes o i j the world, joining their strength together would unite in. 'one great effort to male ■ the world a pleasant place to liVe in, am when ;they wotild. not waete their etrengtl in murdering t each other on the field o battle or in the -fierce field of internationa competition, but when the^ should com y bine .together, the East giving of its gift and the West giving of its gifts, and th< two combining to, uplift the whole on to i higher plane than -they had formerly occu pied.— (Applause.). That was the idea of the ' Socialist movement, and he hopec ' in -the Very ' near future thVt these Britisl Dominions beyond the seas would take thei4;.plaee asa fighting unit in the Socialist movement of the world, whioh aimed al the " abolition of poverty and the perfed equality of the human race. — (Loud ap plause and ciheers.) After a number of questions bearing or the subject of • the address -had beer answered, The ,Hon. J. T.. Paul, M.L.C? 7 moved a hearty vote of thinks to Mr Keir Hardic for his able address. He felt safe in say' ing that the Keir Hardie they had hearc that night; wae a very different individual to the Keir Hardie who Eact been served uj> to them for so many months and sc many years. — (Applause.) He wished tc say that he did not regard the action oi the Mayor of Dunedin as a slight on Mi Keir Hardie, but he took it personally and collectively > as a slight on the Labour party of Dunedin. — (Loud appl&uset)Mr J. F. Arnold, M,P., seconded the motion, and warmly thanked the speaker of the evening for his interesting and instructive speech. The motion was carried amidst a scene of enthusiasm. Mr Keir Hardie briefly returned thanks, and the meeting concluded with the customary compliment to the ohair.