WANTED YOUNG M.P’S

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 626, 1 April 1929, Page 11

WANTED YOUNG M.P’S

ADVICE TQ LABOUR TALK AS BAD AS DRUGS “If I had my way, I would make it a rule that 50 per cent; of the Labour candidates in any election must be under 30. I don’t care if they make mistakes, I only care that some share in the making of laws should be given to those whose life is beginning, not ending,” writes Miss Ellen Wilkinson, M.P., in the “New Leader.” “Youth must win that place, win it in the ‘trenches’ of committee rooms, canvass squads, soap-box and platform, and it means work. Some men I know who might have been the leaders in a great revival movement in the Labour Party have wasted themselves —-not by drink, but by talk. "They have met and talked and talked and criticised and planned, but nothing happened after. To the groups of young men and women cracking nuts and criticism together round garret gas fires,. I say, ‘Good, but it is as bad as taking drugs unless that talk leads to action.’ “The Labour Party holds out great opportunity to youth, but it can do no more than offer. If youth is bored or uninterested, the old men must carry on, and in their own way.”