THE LABOR PARTY.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 June 1920, Page 5

THE LABOR PARTY.

REV. HOWARD ELLIOTT'S STRICTURES. "DISLOYALTY AND ROMANISty." .(From Our Own Correspondent.) Stratford, June, 6. Hundreds of pounds are being raised fi*om the Roman Catholics in New Zealand, and also from some Protestants, too, to be sent to Ireland to help the Sinn Feinerfi shoot down our brothers there," stated the Rev. Howard Elliott in the course of his address at Stcatford on Friday sight. The speaker vividly described some of the atrocities which had been committed in Ireland, and said that those outrages were being iistified in New Zealand. The doctrine of disloyalty was being preached throughout New Zealand, and tile Church of Rome was behind the disloyal utterances of the leaders of the extreme Labor Party. The preaching of Rome, he said, ran parallel with the preaching of the Sinn Feiners, Bolfiheviks, and Red Feds of this country. What was happening in' the Labor unions of this country? The Protestant members were careless and( indifferent, and gradually Rome was working her men into the responsible positions, and sooner or later when an election was held iTonie hoped to get back to power in this country on the backs of extreme Labor. He warned the farmers and laiid-ownera that one of the planks of the Labor Party was the confiscation of land.

"The Labor leaders talk about tlie | merchants and farmers as being the I profiteers of this country, and say they in';' .squeezing 'the life out of the people," added Mr. Elliott. A voice: So they are! Mr. Elliott: Well, I don't know if the farmers are squeezing the life out of you, but I do know that the wharf laborers of Wellington are squeezing the life out of the country, and are demanding 5s 3d an hour for working on the wharves and spending three-quarters of that hour sitting down." The speaker mentioned instances of boat after boat coming to Wellington and having to go away again without their full cargoes being discharged, owing to the laziness of the wharf laborers, and said that if the Taranaki farmers did as little work as the wharf laborers they wouldn't milk one cow a day. The shipping companies were entirely nt the mercy of these people, and had to give in to their demands and pass the cost on to the consumer. The workers talked about others profiteering, but they forgot that they' were the worst profiteers themselves, and were largely responsible for the increased cost of living.

Mr Elliott added that the P.P.A. wag not opposed to Labor, and recognised that the workers were entitled to a fair deal. In fact, there were more members «f Labor unions in the P.L'.A. than there were of any other class. Unfortunately, however, these people Were driven into the extreme Labor Party because they were not Liberal and were not Reform. For the 25,000 genuine labor unionists the voico of the P.P-A. would always bo used. At a later stage of the meeting MiElliott appealed for funds with which to carry on ihe work of the association. He said thjit recently he had been speaking to a man who had mado £16,000 in excess profits last year, and the man had offered a donation of £5 to the association. This Mr. Elliott refused, saying that ho .vould accept nothing less than £SOO from the man, telling him that that was only half of what the P.P.A. had saved him in extra income-tax, through keeping tl(e Liberal Party out of power. He appealed to Protestants to give as mucli as they could, because of what the association had done for them last election in breaking up the Liberal Party.