The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1927. TWO MINDS OF LABOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 184, 25 October 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1927. TWO MINDS OF LABOUR

'THERE is a striking contrast between the mind of Labour leaders in Great Britain and Labour’s most representative mind in New Zealand on the vital question of industrial peace. A report from London yesterday revealed the declared confidence of Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald in the development of the peace movement in British industry. On the same day, it was reported from Invercargill that the New Zealand Labour Leader, Mr. Holland, had expressed his belief, or fear, or suspicion, that the proposed alteration in the constitution of the Arbitration Court would lead first to the victimisation of the employees who took part as assessors, or arbitrators, and then and thus force the workers to strike as their only means of redress. It will he noticed that there are occasions when two minds may not have but a single thought, and times when two great minds do not think alike. Perhaps the difference of outlook as between two competent Labour leaders in politics, each exceedingly clever in his own way and political environment, both marred with definite limitations, was most marked in the contrast of temper. Speaking mellifluously in an English town, the Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Commons was placid, conciliatory, non-partisan, and even suavely hopeful. Most profoundly he believed that the establishment ol: goodwill and. useful co-operation by the two sides in industry could and would he effected. Mr. MacDonald did not see the Tory Government as the lion in the path. Declaiming on a quiet Sunday evening in Invercargill (is there a more tranquil environment than that anywhere?), the Leader of the Labour Opposition in the New Zealand Parliament was vehement, irreconcilable, partisan and bitterly hopeless. ”1 think,” said Mr. Holland, “that there is a reawakening of feeling among the people. There is a wave gathering which, like the psychological wave that swept the Coates Government into power, will sweep it out again.” That, of course, is not impossible, hut the tide of reaction is still low. It would have been infinitely of better service to employers and workers alike throughout the country if Mr. Holland had concentrated his zealous passion of argument on disclosing the real mind of Labour on the question of industrial peace and the influence of the Arbitration Court in helping to maintain peace. What is Labour’s policy on the subject, which is, .after all, vitally more important than sport, tin-hare coursing, and the silly conflict of High Churchmen? Labour speaks with two voices. Here and there trades union leaders yearn openly for the abolition of the Arbitration Court, and freedom to strike when the mood for industrial warfare infects their judgment with the microbe of destruction; elsewhere, and particularly in Parliament, the “thin red line” of Labour is ready to spring to arms against the Government’s crude and dangerously foolish Bill. After sixty years of sporadic industrial warfare in Great Britain, culminating in the ruinous national strike, Laboui declares that it has just reached the beginning of the constructive period of trades unionism. The workers aim at obtaining a share in the control and administration of industry through their unions. Many employers at last realise the wisdom of that policy and are willing to promote co-operation for industrial peace. Have we reached the lamentable stage in this misgoverned country when, after thirty years of compulsory arbitration and reasonable freedom from destructive industrial conflict, employers and workers must revert to barbaric strikes . It that be the outlook it is time the provocative experimenters in politics consulted a phrenologist.

THE RED HAND IN INDIA THERE has been so much joking about the “Bolshie” that too great a number of people refuse to consider Bolshevism seriously. Yet the Red Hand that has drenched Russia m blood, now drips over India, and there comes a warning liom a native of noble birth, the Maharajah of Burdwan, that cannot be ignored. The Rajah is a statesman, and the fact that he was t?ie Indian delegate to the Imperial Conference last year stamps him a man who is really representative of his country. Moscow's menace against India is greater and more insidious than that of the autocratic Tsardom of a generation ago, when a Russian invasion of India was expected,” he declares. It was not to be expected that a Soviet which has sent agents and monev to the ends of the earth to spread its propaganda of revolution would neglect such an inflammable field as India, lying so close at hand. There is sufficient evidence that Bolshevism has been particularly active in Afghanistan, right on the Indian border, and it is from here that the Red Hand is stretching, across the north-west frontier, to foment among the warlike tribes of India a hatred of the ruling power and a lust for blood and rapine. It is significant that the reported forthcoming tour of the Amir of Afghanistan is to include a visit to Moscow, the centre of hatred of well-ordered government. To Soviet influences, too, is attributed the refusal of the Persian Government to allow the establishment of a British air route to Persia—another nearby country in which the influence of the Red Hand is being made manifest. While British interests appear to be regarding the situation with easy tolerance, the Red Parliament openly talks war, and one of its high emissaries of mischief, Leon Karakhan, who was a while back busy in Peking, exciting Chinese hatred of the'British, says the clash is only being delayed because of advantageous dissent among the Powers which are to be preyed upon, “British friction with the Dominions,” the spreading of Bolshevism among the labouring classes of the world, and the Soviet’s own increasing strength. Meanwhile, the Soviet is sympathising with the “oppressed Asiatics,” feeding them on such lies as this “British friction with the Dominions.” and has secured the friendship of Turkey, the undoubted power of which nation might quite conceivably be used for the mass murder of those who will obediently swallow the Soviet’s medicine. In every avenue of British interests there are to be found the paid agents of that, ruffianly Russian Government, which hates Britain because of Britain’s proof against its devilish doctrines. It is high time that Britain’s toleration ceased, and that it searched every inch of its soil for those who are preaching sedition to British subjects. And every such revolutionmonger and hate-spitter found thereon should be destroyed, utterly and without mercy.