The Daily News. THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1912. LABOR'S CIVIL WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 219, 14 March 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1912. LABOR'S CIVIL WAR.

The most unhappy thing that is happening in the New Zealand Labor world is the hiving off of little associations of workers under various heads. The reason of this hiving off and the formation of rival societies, federations and what not is pure unadulterated conceit. Each of these rival organisations assumes to believe that in its small self it represents "the solidarity of Labor." In reality, the "hiving off" into rival groups means the coffin of various Labor hopes. Each of these rival Labor organisations is told by its leader that it must use the political machine to further its ends. There is, indeed, no means that can ultimately give Labor all it wants. We will presume that there are three Labor organisations capable in the imaginations of their respective leaders of influencing votes at elections, and therefore capable of supplying members to Parliament. All these organisations are violently antagonistic to each other. There is auppositiously but one Labor party in Parliament, but under the pitiful conditions of enmity between rival sections, no two Labor members in Parliament could agree. There is, therefore, no such thing as "solidarity" (that blessed word), nor can there be while conceited little ( leaders merely work a single group for personal glorification. On examining the Labor position in Australasia one must conclude that Labor is rapidly becoming Labor's enemy. Occasional groups are to be found who urge a "fair deal." Those groups are fought as traitors to the cause—and no two organisations agrees as to what the cause is. These groups in New Zealand watch members of Parliament as a tiger watches a sheep—and stalks them. Any small upstart who is given a hearing volubly discusses parliamentarians and arranges his political funeral if necessary. One of the most difficult jobs a working man can have is a Labor M.P.-ship, for no man is the centre of more verbal hard knocks and no man's position is so shaky. Sudden access to power frequently upsets the equilibrium of untried men, and many Labor men and many Labor leaders are much more harsh in their methods than men who have ruled because

it was their kabit, and the habit of their fathers, to rule. It may be foreseen that' this aggressiveness ia merely a phase, and that it will pass. Labor may learn the habit of ruling justly, of seeing matters in 'their fair proportions, of conceding mankind's rights as distinct from the demands and ambitions of groups. The tremendous unrsst now so apparent is not without educative influence and utility. It has given many men an opportunity of slipping out of the ruck. It has sharpened intellects, has dragged dim lights from under many bushels, and set them shining in high places. It has created problems and spurred people to find solutions. It has insisted on the"*world making provisions to meet emergencies, to gang to be more economical, to study ways and. means of avoiding industrial complications. Even the most virulent ranter has his uses. He has demonstrated to the world the kind of man the world does not want, for no section of men can be led by the nose all the time, and much Labor is being pulled into the slough of despond by the ranter. Th* notion that Labor is making more noise nowadays than formerly, because it is better educated, is half wrong. Intelligent , men are not led away by soap-box orators. - Such people simply lead for a while in precisely the same way that a quack leads innocent folk to buy his nostrums by using exaggerations and misstatements. Where the statements of one Labor section are deemed to be misstatements by another section, and vice versa, the house falls. Labor must agree wholly or revert to the old style, "EveVy man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost."