LABOUR PARTY CHALLENGED.

Shannon News, 4 May 1923, Page 3

LABOUR PARTY CHALLENGED.

PRESIDENT OF R.S.A. OUTSPOKEN. A VIGOROUS ONSLAUGHT. A serious note was sounded by Dr. J. Graham Gow, M.C., the retiring President ol the Levin Returned Soldiers’ Association at the annual meeting last week. Replying to the toast of the N.Z.R.S.A., and appealing for continued interest on the part of members, the president said: “If we are to keep up our membership we must retain and maintain those high ideals for which we fought. We are, as you know, a non-party political organisation and in what I am going to say now I wish you to fully realise that 1 am not advocating that the R.S.A. should take sides in party politics. Unfortunately there is a section oi the community in New Zealand which is always ready to ally itself to any movement which has for its object the disintegration of he British Empire, or the advancement of the Empire’s enemies.” The doctor then referred to a report of a conference of the N.Z. Labour Party at Christchurch and read the following resolutions adopted 1 at the conference and reported in the newspapers of April 5:

It was decided to* send a summary of the report by cable as a week-end message to the joint National Council of the British Labour Party, the Belgian Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and German Social Democratic Party: “That this Conference pledges itself forthwith to embark upon an active campaign demanding the repeal of the present Defence Act, as in the opinion of this Conference, it is unnecessary and useless, and has a demoralising effect upon the boyhood of our country; and we also demand the repeal of the law which disenfranchises a number of conscientious objectors.” “This Conference whole-heartedly joins with the Labour and Socialist movements of the world in protesting against the present policy now being pursued by the French Government towards Germany. We join with the joint National Council of the British Trades Union Executive, the British Labour party and the Parliamentary Labour Party in regarding that policy as the invasion of a neighbouring State in time of peace without any justification, either under the Treaty of Versailles or any principle of International law, and consequently as an act of war. The invasion .consti tutes an attack on the rights of the working class, the members of which are treated as mere pawns or chattels. It is also an attack on the self-deter-mination of the German people. In our opinion. in no circumstances should war be reverted to, and to this end the New Zealand Labour Party will support the British, French, Belgian, German and Italian .Socialist, parties in their difficulties created by the Treaty of Versailles.

“ Now, gentlemen,” continued the President," “I strongly maintain that those are not questions of party politics hut of national Imperial policy, anil 1 say that no one has more right to voice an opinion on national Imperial affairs than we who fought for the nation and Empire. Look at this first resolution -4n which our Allies are taken to task"; while, sympathy is poured out for our late enemies. Did not the Treaty of Versailles provide certain sanctions which were to he imposed in the event of Germany’s defaulting in her reparation payments? After four years of patient endeavour on the part of the Allies to persuade Germany to meet her obligations; after four years of evasion and broken pledges; of deceit and double dealing on Germany’s part, France has imposed the sanctions and occupied the Ruhr. Thus and thus only has Germany been brought to realise that the damage so wantonly inflicted by the German armies must be made good by the German people. \ud this, savs Air Holland, is “an attack on the "self-determination of the Gernfan people.” But- what of the Belgian people and the people - oi France. In those early years of the war when advancing hordes of Huns ravaged and-laid waste the lands ol Belgium and of France, when every law and usage of civilised warfare was broken and set at nought, when the civilians of Belgium and France were deported or murdered, and when Ib.e women of Belgium and France were worse than murdered, what then of the German people and what of New Zealand’s Social Democrats? Did the German people rise up and demand the self determination of Belgium and France? Did Mr Holland and his confreres send frantic protests to their German friends to recall their victorious armies?-Did they send resolutions of sympathy to France and Belgium at losing their right of self-determination? It so I never heard of it and neither did you. No, gentlemen, while their armies were advancing and victory seemed assured, the German people acclaimed thenvictories and exalted their War Lords. U was not till those armies were do feared and driven hack to their own soil; not till their dream of wm dominion was shattered, that the Gorman people rose up and deposed their Kaiser and those whom they blqmecl for their defeat. Exultant' and arrogant in victory, in defeat- they have become sullen and obstinate. Mistaking leniency for weakness the German people have consistently evaded their responsibilities and broken their pledges. Now, when a little of their own medicine generously diluted-, is being administered to- them they set up a. most unholy squeal and their squealing evokes the sorrow and sympathy of Mr" Holland and his friends and we get.this protest against “an attack on the-self-determination of the German people.” I want to emphasise the attitude adopted during the war by these present protagonists ot the German people. Not only did they make no protest against the German invasion of France arid' Belgium, but

when Britain went to the assistance of her Allies, and New Zealand, wb the rest of the Empire, was fighting for its very existence, what assistance did we get from Mr Holland and the other leaders of this Socialist party in New Zealand? I say that they did all that was in their power to embarrass and harass this country and the Emnire. Those whom tbev would call their ‘best fighters’ went to gaol in New Zealand rather than to the trenches in France. No doubt they were safer in vaoi and we managed to pull though without them. This spirit of antagonism to British interests and concern for Britain’s enemies was again in evidence recently, when Turkey’s advance on the Dardanelles threatened to precipitate another world conflagration. Lloyd George “calling” Kemal Pasha’s bluff—if bluff it were—annealed to the Dominions for their sunnort, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand sent promptly the reply which twice before has gone to the Mother Country in time of peril “That New Zealand would be there.” (You will remember that the Executive of the N.Z.R.S.A. held a special meeting and endorsed that reply on behalf of all the returned soldiers in New Zealand.) But the party in New Zealand whose fighting men go to gaol when wars are in progress opposed the Prime Minister’s action, and Mr Holland and his adherents voted against it in the House. This other resolution to which I have drawn your attention proposing to abolish our defence system and to restore ..the franchise to military defaulters, is all in keeping with the anti-British policy of TteSe Ne.w Zealand Socialists.' I say military defaulters advisedly, although the resolution refers to them as conscientious objectors. Under the military Service Act every man called up to serve was given an opportunity to object to military service and ii' he could prove conscientious • objections he was neither forced to- go on active service nor deprived of his civil rig’; ■ It was only those men who refused to fight or to go before an Impartial tribunal to' give valid reasons for exemption, only those men who preferred the safety of a New Zealand gaol, who preferred the broad arrow to the khaki or who fled to the hills when they were called on to join then fellow citizens in the firing line, who were listed as military defaulters and deprived of their civil rights. These men have forfeited their civil rights by relusing to meet the obligations of citizens. To allow these men to exercise the rights which they were not men enough to maintain, while others fought and many thousands died to maintain them, is to destroy lire principle of inter-responsibility between the citizen and the State which is the very foundation of our society and our Empire. And for that very reason the party which met in Christchurch is pledged to restore their civil rights to the defaulters. Finally, this conference pledged itself to an active campaign to abolish alto-

gether our present Defence Act under which military .training has already . been reduced to the irreducible minimum. ■■'Gentlemen, I hold rib'-brief for Capital as against Labour. I do not claim that the present relationship between Capital and Labour is not capable of improvement. I consider myself as truly a worker as an-y man who earns his living by purely manual work. I realise tlFat the big majority of you and of all returned soldiers are workers either with the pick and shovel or with the pen. But I say this to you, and I say it to every m'ranber.of the-R-.S'A.: We fought for an ideal and that ieleal was the preservalion of the British Empire and ils free and fair constitution. We [ought that our own Dominion might remain an integral part of that Em-

pire. We saw our best friends killed lighting lor that ideal and others maimed and tortured in upholding that ideal. And now I say that unless we as an Association retain and maintain that ideal and proclaim our belief in and our support of the constitution of this Dominion and of this Empire for which our comrades died and for which we fought, then as an association we shall cease to exist. Therefore, I say -'that while I have the greatest sympathy with the legitimate aspirations- ,of the Labour organisations of this country to- better the lot of their members by legitimate means at the same time 1 say that the N.Z. R.S.A. should take a firm stand and openly declare itself as everlastingly opposed- to the revolutionary forces in our country whose' words and actions proclaim them to be committed to the disintegration of the British Empire.

Dr. Gow’s remarks were received with general approval by those present. ’