WELLINGTON NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1919, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES.

WORKERS AND WORKERS. THEIR DIFFERENCES. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Jan. 1. In his New Year message to the people of New Zealand, published in the papers this morning, the GovernorUeneral makes a special appeal for unity I in iacing the great problems arising 'out of the war that lie berore the Dominion. "Carping at failures;' he says, "will not achieve success and will only arouse bitterness. We are all workers; we have stood side by aide in affliction, bet us remain shoulder to shoulder in times of peace.'' The *vords &eenj 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 inore militant section -of the Labor Party can see in them only an invitation tc the two older political parties' to stand together in opposition so the new force that is arising in the public life of the country THE MILITANT VIEW.

One of the leaders of this new force, discussing the matter at the street corner to-day, Baid he had no objection to Lord Liverpool lending a hand to the coalition that had given a certain measure of glamor to his term of office bv its intense militarism. He was not going to quarrel with his lordship on that score. But it was as ridiculous as it was futile to' expect the workers, who, after all, had borne the sorest burdens of the war, both at the front and at home, to sit down quietly and endure indefinitely economic and industrial injustices which had bec.n imposed upon them in the sacred name ot patriotism. No doubt Lord Liverpool and Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward were workers, but they were working under -conditions to which the ■ wages man was' a stranger, and they-know nothing of the-worries

and anxieties, .by which he »as beset every day. of nis life. THE COST OF LIVING. Leaving the familiar generalities and coming down to details, this apostle of protest instanced the "muddle" that had •been made over the cost of living problem. "Here we have a Board of Trade," he insisted, "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 for doing nothing to keep down the prices to the working men:" 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 Supplies had administered his | Department not unsympathetically to j the wage-earners, but for the National j Cabinet as a whole there was only the criticism that it had failed to make anyseripus attempt to ameliorate the hard lot of tie great mass of the workers. THE ALTERNATIVE.

When asked what alternative to the National Government he and his friends | had to offer, the -orttio was surprisingly 'modest. He would not care to see a Labor Government in office just yetnot till the party had attracted all the progressive forces of the country to its ranks and could speak and act with the authority of a united The realisation of this dream might not be so far away as faint-liearted people within the party thought. There were many Reformers as well as many Liberals much better disposed towards tabor today than they were a year or two ago, anil it rested largely with (ho "Labor members now in Parliament tb commend the party's policy and aspirations to the common-sense and judgment of the electors. The worst enemy, of progress was the unreasoning and irresponsible .extremist, and wjiat Mr. Semple and his colleagues Irad to do was to show this person was' no friend of theirs.