LABOR AND SOVIETISM.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 June 1922, Page 12

LABOR AND SOVIETISM.

> LEADER’S CONTRADICTORY j. STATEMENTS. MISLEADING THE P. AND T, OFFICERS. We have before us a pamphlet published by the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association as the report of the discussion which took place (in committee) on the subject of the Alliance of Labor at the conference in October, 1921. Messrs. M. J. Mack, alliance president and J. Roberts, secretary, addressed the conference. In i.nswering one question, Mr. Roberts spoke as follows: AGAINST THE SOVIET, Mr. Roberts: “Now I am asked about our relationship to the Soviet, and all I want to say is this: that we have no relationship with the Soviet, and I am going to say definitely to you that the introduction of the system to New Zealand would never be a success, and the man who would advoci< • the intro- ! duct ion of the system to this country • would be a candidate for the nearest mental hospital. What was all right for the people of Russia is not necessarily all right for the people of New Zealand. The people of Russia were not free, and they understood only the law of force. The Soviet system that I suggest is control of your own Department.” Mr. Steels: Your attitude is not favorable to the Soviet? Mr. Roberts: No. WHAT IS THE SOVIET SYSTEM? Apparently the delegates present at that conference forgot to ask the very pertinent question —what is the Soviet? From the context wo take it that what is meant by “the Soviet” as there used, if the Russian system of Government. Well, what is that? We have a published copy of the Russian Soviet Constitution adopted by the fifth allRussian Congress of Soviets at its sitting of July 10, 1918. The constitution definitely affirms the policy of: (a) Collective ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. (b) Control of industries by the workers through a supreme council of national economy. (c) Representation of the industrial workers in the Soviet congress which constitutes the Russian form of Parliament. SUPPORTING THE SOVIET PRINCIPLES. If the P. and T. delegates at this conference had been fully conversant with the matter of what the Russian Bolshevist industrial system means they would recognise that Mr. Roberts’ statement to the effect that the “alliance” was not favorable to the Soviet was pure bluff and deception. In thia very report of the P. and T. Association it is stated that the alliance objective is: (1) The organisation of the wageworkers of New Zealand on the lines of class and industry. (2) The collective ownership of the meafis of production and distribution, and control of aU industries by the workers who operate them in the interests of the community. Our readers will see that this “objective” is the same in principle as that stated in the Soviet constitution. On page 18 of the report Mr. Roberts says: “INDUSTRIAL PARLIAMENT.” “Passing on to another point: If ever industry is to be efficiently, managed it muht be manged by men who understand it. If the P. and T. Department is to be efficiently managed men must have a say. Messrs. Massey and Coates know possibly as much about your Department as the farmers do, and that is not very much—possibly the licking of a two penny stamp is their limit. The day is coming in New Zealand when, instead of having a Government elected according to geographical boundaries, we will have one elected by the different industries. Your industry" will have its representative there. *He will be put there by you, and you will have the right to put him out as soon as he treats you too hard. The time has arrived now when we should be audacious in every department.” “Instead of the regulations being placed before yotiy your men should be there to draft' them.” SHAMELESS DECEPTION. We have no hesitation in stigmatising this sophistical yes-no talk of the alliance secretary as simply ' deception. The Russian system upholds the principles of: (1) Collective ownership of industries. (2) Control of all industries by the workers who operate them in the interests of the community. (3) Government through an industrial Parliament named a Supreme Economical Council. The New Zealand Alliance of Labor endorses all of these principles, and yet its secretary had the shameless audacity to tell the P. and T. Conference that his “alliance” does not favor the Soviet. We can quite believe Mr. Roberts was in earnest when he said: “The time has arrived now when we should be audacious in every department.” The motto of these alliance officers appears to be “audacity, audacity, and still more audacity.” Their greatest trick of audacity is in the plain deception they practised on the P. and T. Officers’ Association as disclosed in the association’s own pamphlet which we herein quote. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare .