Labour on the March

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 385, 20 June 1928, Page 8

Labour on the March

A Fifteen Years’ Crusade

BORN after a great industrial upheaval, and now officially recognised as His Majesty's opposition, the Labour Party in Parliament can look back from its present eminence upon fifteen years of political effort. Will that frail infant, the United Party, be as lusty and vigorous when it is fifteen years old?

J X successive elections Labour has made bold bids for power. Tonight Auckland, from the lips of Mr. H. E. Holland, Labour’s leader, will bear an exposition of the principles on which its claims are founded. It will unquestionably be an able exposition. His political colour cannot shade Mr. Holland’s right to be regarded as, at least, one of the Dominion’s foremost platform speakers, forceful and challenging in his appeal to the masses. Save for eyes which light a rather pale face with a burning enthusiasm, there is nothing in the outward shape of this political crusader to suggest that within him is the soul of a poet, and a very able poet, whose verse holds more than a touch of music. An Australian by birth, who paid the price of his convictions by serving two terms as a political prisoner before he came to New Zealand in 1912 —and he

was again imprisoned here soon after his arrival—the man who will stand before Auckland to-night turned sixty ten days ago. He is not old in speech or enthusiasm, but he is old in the cause of his adoption. ORIGIN OF LABOUR It was a series of strikes and industrial upheavals that led to Mr. Holland’s imprisonment iu 1913-14, as a result of his written and spoken observations upon the trouble, and it was the events of the same turbulent period that led to the organisation of Labour as it is known now in New Zealand. Of the old Liberal Party, Mr. Holland holds the view that it lacked a personality after, the death of R. J. Seddon, the Liberal-Labour successor of Ballance, the original Liberal-Labour

pioneer, and that thereafter its doom was assured by attrition, that became more and more pronounced with the growth of the Labour sentiment expressed by the party of to-day. The \Vaihi strike, in 1912, left bitter memories that spelt an end of the former system, in which expression of Labour sentiment was left to individual trade unions and scattered bodies of Socialists. A. H. Hindmarsli, representing Wellington South, was then the only straight-out Labour man in the House. There had for some time been Liberal-Labour members who were more or less the left wing of the Liberals, but it was round the standard raised modestly by Mr. Hindmarsh that pioneers of official Labour gathered. The closer organisation of the Labour Party began with a preliminary conference in Wellington in January, 1913. The larger “unity conference” was held in July of the same year, and from that was horn the Labour Party of to-day. In the month of its birth it was stimulated by the election of “Paddy” Webb to the Grey seat, which had become vacant on the death of Sir Arthur Guinness, the Speaker of the House. Mr. Webb, who is chiefly remembered for violent speeches during the war, lost his seat in 1918, because, in the austere language of the Parliamentary record, he was “absent without leave for one whole session.” He was, in fact, in gaol, a political prisoner, and his automatic disqualification opened the way for Mr. Holland to begin his Parliamentary career. Mr. Holland was elected to succeed Mr. "Webb in Grey, but the electorate was abolished a few months later in a readjustment of boundaries. In the same year Mr. J. Colvin, member for Buller for a very long period, was killed by a tram when leaving the House, and Mr. Holland was elected to fill his place. He has held the seat since with large majorities. MR. SAVAGE A PIONEER The post-war years were big years for Labour. After Hindmarsh and Webb had come McCombs (Lyttelton) and Andrew Walker (Dunedin North) at the 1914 election. Mr. M. J. Savage was at this time unsuccessfully endeavouring to capture the Auckland West seat, but he did not win it until 1919, when Messrs. Parry and Bartrum were also returned for Auckland electorates. In this election Mr. R. Semple, who had held Wellington South for a year, was defeated, but Mr. Peter Fraser retained his hold on Wellington Central. The later development and fluctuation in the strength of the Parliamentary Labour Party are more recent history. At the coming election Labour, which generally bases its policy on the amount of funds and party strength apparent within the particular electorate, will be appealing to the people in all but a few predominantly rural territories, and the substance of its appeal will doubtless be traversed by Mr. Holland in his address this evening.