LABOUR AND LOYALTY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 17, 11 April 1927, Page 6

LABOUR AND LOYALTY

THE assurance of his loyalty to the British Crown given by Mr. Bloodworth, the Labour candidate for the mayoralty of Auckland, was not necessary so far as Mr. Bloodworth personally was concerned. He has so long been a good citizen that reasonable persons can have no doubt on that score, however he may have differed politically from some of his colleagues on the various public bodies with which he has been associated. It is a very old ruse, though happily very much discredited these days, to impute disloyalty tc Labour men whenever they seek the public suffrage, and for this reason it was perhaps just as well that Mr. Bloodworth should have made his position definitely clear. Quite a number of people, who could see nothing good in any political outlook but their own, prophesied dire happenings when the Rev. J. K. Archer was elected to the mayoralty of Christchurch. They saw red flags, anarchy, chaos and the tearing down of the Royal Standard in their politically inspired nightmares. But Christchurch hasn’t flamed into revolution; in fact, it is a particularly well-managed city, and after the departure of the Duke of York, the Prime Minister thought it due to the Labour Mayor to compliment him on the manner in which he had arranged the reception of the Royal visitor. Mr. Bloodworth confessed that in his very young days he was a republican—in such excellent company as that of Sir Joseph Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke. Like a good many others who form immature opinions, he grew out of them. Now he says, “One of the greatest factors for peace and progress in the world to-day is the existence of the British Empire or Commonwealth of British nations. One of the most important parts of that Empire and its standing is the Throne of England.” Most young men have free ideas which are not curbed until advancing years and experience, expose their fallacies. Mr. Bloodworth is not the only man in politics who has had to pass through the process of political evolution-—neither are the members of the Laboux - Pai’ty the only men to have been possessed by extremely i-adical ideas in their callow youth. There is no question whatever of loyalty or disloyalty' in the forthcomingelection, and'those who attempt to raise it are merely seeking to blind the electoi’s to the vital issues, which are those of efficient civic administration—and civic efficiency in the past two veai’s has been conspicuous by its absence.