LABOR IN POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 149, 3 October 1910, Page 5

LABOR IN POLITICS.

THE PARTY PLEDGE. PRESS VIEWS. By Cable.—< Press Association.—Copyright. London, September 30. The Morning Leader considers that the recommendation ds wise, as the pledge would be an obstacle to securing the payment of members, which must be the main feature of the coming remedy. The Morning Post states that the abolition of the pledge is a step which will mean' leaving Labor and Socialism the substance of the power and Liberal supporters a shadow of liberty. The Daily News states that Cabinet carefully considered 1 payment of members and election expenses. The plan favored in Ministerial circles is an allround salary of £3OO or £4OO per annum, paid monthly. The Law Journal considers that a simple solution of the question of payment of members is to ha/ve re-affirmed the liability of shires and boroughs to pay salaries to the representatives in the House of Commons, and make the charge enforceable against the rates. The Westmintser Gazette is of opinion that the decision of the Laibor party simplifies the problem of the reversal of the Osborne decision. It is desirable that trade unions shall be represented in Parliament, but legislation must not deprive minorities of the right of redress if funds are used in an organised manner to support political parties. MR. OSBORNE'S VIEWS. Received 2, 5.5 p.m. London, October 2. Mr. Osborne, interviewed, said that if the outward pledge to withdraw members who were still bounl by contract, because the Labor party was the paymaster between constituencies and members, anyone failing to meet the Socialist party wishes would be hounded from public life. Mr. Ben Tillett strenuously resists abolition. A GREAT PRINCIPLE. UNDERMINED BY THE LABOR PLEDGE. The British Labor party's pledge stipulates that "all candidates shall sign and accept the conditions of the Labor party and be subject to their Whip." When the Osborne case was taken on appeal to the House of Lords, Lord Shaw, in giving his judgment, made notable reference to the constitutional position of pledseIbound members of Parliament. A Labor member, in signing the party pledge, his Lordship, said, came under a.contract to place his vote and action into subjection not to his own convictions, but to the party's decisions. "I do not think," Lord Shaw said, "that such subjection is compatible either with the spirit of our Parliamentary constitution or with that independence and freedom which . have hitherto been held to lie at the basis of representative government in the United Kingdom." These considerations appealed not to labor organisations alone, but with even greater force to individual men or organisations or trusts of men using capital funds to procure the subjection of members of Parliament to their command. 'VFor my part," said Lord Shaw, "I look upon the whole doctrine as necessarily flowing from the fundamental idea that Parliament—originally conceived as a body of advisers to the King—is free in its election and free in its advice. This fundamental idea of freedom has stood upon the Statute Book for many centuries. .Ht is quite true that the protections which are thrown around freedom are largely in the shape of securing to electors and constituencies the exercise without contraint or corruption of the franchise they enjoy. But all .this would have been a mockery if r afjter purity and freedom had been enjoifted amongst the constituencies, the representatives of the electors were not. to. be in the possession of their freedom in thought, advice, and action, not to be free, but to be bound under contract to. submit for a salary and at peril of loss, of it to the judgment of others. These principles have been frequently the subject of evasion and attack; —sometimes open, sometimes secret —but they have never been overthrown. They applied to laborists' men, to capitalists' men, or, as in fo.rmer times, to King's men. The money payment which is the price of voting at the bidding of others destroys or imperils freedom of advice, which is fundamental in the free constitution of Parliament. Inter aHa, the' Labor party pledge is an unconstitutional and unwarrantable interference with the rights of the constituencies of the United Kingdom. The member of Parliament must be free and not be a paid mandatory of any manv or organisation of men, nor is he entitled to bind himself and subordinate has opinions on public questions to Others for wages or at the periol of pecuniary loss."