WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, 4 January 1919, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

[ WORKERS AND WORKERS. THEIR DIFFERENCE. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, January 1. In his New Year message to people of New Zealand published Ilf the papers this morning the GovernorGeneral makes a special appeal for unity m facing the great problems arising out of the war that lie before the Dominion. “Carping at failures," Be says, “will not achieve success and will only arouse bitterness. . ,We are all workers; we have stood side by side In affliction Let ns remain shoulder to shoulder in times of peace.” The words seem appropriate enough to the occasion, if not particularly inspiring, and no one acquainted with His Excellency’s broad sympathies will doubt their sincerity; but the more militant section of the Labour Party can see in them only an invitation to the two older political parties to stand together in opposition to the tew force that is arising in the pub Vic life of the country THE MILITANT VIEW. One of the leaders of this new forcediscussing the matter at the Streep corner to-day said he had no to Lord Liverpool lending a hand *)o the coalition that had given a certain measure of glamour to his term of office by its intense militarism. He

| was flot going to quarrel with his Lordship on that score. But it was as : ridiculous as it was futile to expect j the workers, who, after all, had borne--j the sorest burdens of the war, hot* P j at the front and at home, to sit down ' j quietly and endure indefinitely eco- [ nomic and industrial injustices which j had been imposed upon them in the j sacred name of patriotism. No doubt ■ Lord Liverpool and Mr Massey and j Sir Joseph Ward were workers, but j they wore working under conditions to I which the wages man was a stranger 1 and they knew nothing of the worries I and anxieties by which hq was beset j every day of his life. | THE COST OF LIVING, j Leaving the familiar generalities and j coming down to details, this apostle of protest instanced ihe “muddle” that had been made over the cost-of-living problem. “Here we have a. Board of Trade.” ho instanced, “with no more authority than you or I have to deal with the things that really matter, and yet it stands as the Government’s eternal excuse tor dung nothing to keep down prices to the working"man.” There was a word or two of praise for the efforts made by the Minister of Agriculture In this direction and a rather grudging admission that the Minister of Munitions and SuppliJCs had administered his Department not unsympathetically to the wage-earners, but for the National Cabinet as a whole there was only the criticism that it had failed to make any seriousattempt to ameliorate the hard lot of the great mass of the workers. THE ALTERNATIVE. When asked what alternative to the National Government he and his friends had to offer the critic was surprisingly modest. He would not care to see a Labour Government in office just yet—not till the party had attracted all the progressive forces in the country to its ranks and could speak and act with the authority of a united majority. The realisation of this dream might not he sp far away ns faint-hearted people within the party thought. There were many Reformers as well as many liberals much bettor disposed towards Labour to-day than they were a year or two ago and it rested largely with the Labour members now in Parliament to recommend the party’s policy aspirations to the comraonsen.se judgment of the electors. The worst enemy of progress was the unreasoning and irresponsible extremist, and what Mr. Semp#* and his colleagueshad to do was So show this person ? was no friend 5f theirs.