The Taihaps Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1918. CHAOTIC LABOUR.

Taihape Daily Times, 31 January 1918, Page 4

The Taihaps Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1918. CHAOTIC LABOUR.

I with which is incorporated The Tailing Post and Walmarino News).

Annoyingly confusing in the politics of the British Empire is the term, "Labour Party." In fact it has drifted into representing so many opposing factions and elements that it is high time legitimate labour took steps to evolve some, dependable, logical definition that would tend to distinguishing between various socialistic

grades, the fire and murder of an

archy, and labour proper. A man who claims to belong to the labour party may „be a citizen of the most honourable and desirable class, or he may be belong to that gang of destruction and murder that come under fcho category of criminals of the most dangerous description, who should be shot, or shut away -where he cannot interfere with the general peace or stop the progress of law-abiding people. To-day, the term labour party means almost anything, in its understood comprehension it is a gross libel, and it places the worst criminal natures in the same category and company as the very best specimens of citizenship. In New r Zealand Ave stand off and view the object lesson in Australia, and we are perplexed to know where the labour party begins or ends. The name is a libel on those noble fellows who worked and strove in the days when to belong to the labour party meant little less than social ostracism, and on the men who are' still following in their footsteps; but it is also a shield for the outlaw, a covert for the craziest of criminals, a haven from whence all law and order is ruthlessly and murderously "submarined." In Australia the time seems particularly opportune for political reclassification. It should not now be difficult to draw a tolerably clear-cut line between true labourites and those who would be more, correctly defined under the straight out appellation of anarchists, or, perhaps, bolsheviks, that is if bolshevism is exemplified in the Russian Krylenko. The honoured name of labour is'being dragged in political and moral filth by the very dregs of humanity, and its pride and glory is tamely lying beside the fire and murder of diabolism. The very name of labour did give the idea of building up, of evolution to a higher state of civilisation, of progress in the life and comfort of the peoples of the world, but that day has gone, and now, when we read of labour party exploits in Australia and Europe we may have disclosed to us actions that should be dealt with by the common hangman and of others which deserve to be handed down as examples of the best traditions of the AngloSaxon race. Under the old honoured name of labour there are assembled great multitudes of incongruous unincompatablc elements which urgently need resorting, rearranging and reclassifying. To call the destructive elements under the name of labour is to commit an irreparable, cruel wrong, and the leaders of sane labour coidd not achieve anything more vital in the interests of this empire than by effecting a separation of the wheat from the poisonous weeds in labour's ranks. Everything we would urge upon labour was stated in a few words by the poet Tennyson when he wrote,

"The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man, And the man said, 'Am I y our debtor? And the Lord—'Not yet; but make it

as clean as you can, And then I will let you better."

Labour has everything at stake by not keeping its house as clean as it can; it is forfeiting all claim and hope

to anything better by living on in the filth of the brute that destroys and dies with his destruction, collapsing in the midst of it, because license, not IaAV and progress, has consumed him. Labour nomenclature, in the political and social sense, to-day, means chaos. To be told that a man is standing for Parliament in the interests of labour is to create confusion of mind, and even the stated laboritc's own words, too. often, do not reveal the true nature of the man, and it is only when considerable mischief is done that we realise our misplaced confidence. LabGur needs, in its own vital interests, to clear its house of the pro-German and bolshevik intruders and interlopers. To say and to know that other political parties do discreditable acts is no mitigation ,of labour's stupidity and foolhardiness. A clearing out of tho 'dangerous human leaven, would 'bring 'an influx into the ranks of labour that would stand for political and social progress; for the sanctity of home life; for the betterment of all classes, eliminating the word poor, as a synonym of destitute, from our vocabulary; for a brighter, more harmonious, peaceful world in which the arts and sciences would never cease to flourish. The world is at labour's feet waiting to be cleaned and kept as clean as labour can keep it. Political, social and moral filth was never' miscible with political, social and moral rectitude; it has always stood out readily recognisable, incapable of reaction with it, the work of the outlaw that slashes away all bonds that hold the political and social structure together—the anarchist. The time is at hand when the reorganisation of th c ranks of labour might mean the saving of this country's homes from similar awful crimes, looting, ravage and murder,- that are being practiced to-day by anarchists in Europe. We are no more immune than the peoples of other countries from the brutal instincts that have, by misfortune, in tho melee resulting from the tearing down of the social fabric, resulted in the murder and degradation in thousands of hitherto happy homes. In New Zealand there are ten times the number of people that would flock to a sane labour party than would be lost by the cleansing in the cutting away of anarchy. Thc object lesson in Australian politics ought to convince labour in New Zealand that a reclassification and reorganisation is needed that will convey some lucid understanding of what the words, "Labour Party" mean