The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1922. LABOR’S GROWING POWER.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1922, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1922. LABOR’S GROWING POWER.

In the light of the result of the recent general elections in Britain, Nev; Zealand and Australia (Federal), the growth of Labor as a power in polities cannot fail to arrest attention. In Australia, Labor’s political barometer is subject to fluctuations, and there is always a possibility of victory at the polls, but in the Motherland and New Zealand, despite the efforts of those who have strenuously striven to enlighten the public as to the nature of Labor’s aims and the danger of its revolutionary policy, the success of the extremists is certainly a most remarkable sign of the times. That Labor should have obtained over one hundred and forty seats at the recent general election in Britain —a gain of fifty-six—is all the more puzzling to explain by reason of what occurred in the English municipal elections, at which the Labor-Soc-ialists suffered a complete rout a week or two earlier. In political circles it was considered this rout would be a precursor of the fate awaiting the Labor Party at the Parliamentary election, a forecast that was doomed to be entirely erroneous. Yet, in the London boroughs alone, Labor lost 313 seats to Municipal Reformers and others who opposed inefficient administration by Labor-Socialists. In the provinces, out of 589 La-bor-Socialist candidates, 369 were defeated, 185 of these being lost seats. It has yet to be explained how, only a fortnight later, Labor polled in the Parliamentary election 4,355,000 votes (over twenty thousand more than both sections of the Liberals combined) and obtained 141 seats, thus becomrig the second strongest party in the House of Commons. Happily the strength of the dominant party (Mr. Bonar Law’s) is sufficient to carry on a safe, sound and sane Government, but the position in Australia and New Zealand is such that the only common-sense way out of the difficulty is to again appeal to the country. There is one phase of this growing power of Labor that must be fully realised, namely, the expressed intention of Labor-Soc-ialists to make a specially graduated levy on fortunes exceeding £sooo—that Is, a levy on savings. It is significant that the disastrous results which followed upon the mere whisper of the words

“capital levy” in Switzerland, prompted a denial that the scheme outlined in the “Red Manifesto resembled that put. forward by the Swiss Socialists. It was stated that the proposed British capital levy—if Labor ruled—would only apply to individuals, and not* to corporate bodies, banks, co-operative or friendly societies, or trade unions. The expediency of this manifest hedging on what is really a confiscation policy, and nothing less, is at once apparent when it is considered that co-operative societies in the Motherland possess capital of upwards of 72 millions; that trade unions have “fortunes” running into several millions, in spite of the game of “ducks and drakes” played with' the funds in financing strikes; while the friendly societies hold not far short of forty millions, trustees of saving banks 72 millions, and the post, office savings bank about 200 millions. Obviously the security of all that money—mainly the savings of Labor —depends on the preservation of the country’s economic stability, built un on the capitalistie system. When, therefore,

the workers are told there is to be a war on capital generally, they appear to have sufficient sense to realise that any disturbance of that system in which they have their savings invested means the hazarding of all they have. In effect, what the capital levy amounts to is that the thrifty are to be robbed, while those who have larger incomes and spend them up to the hilt will go scot free. It is for the upright, industrious and self-respecting men and women of the Empire to realise what is happening, and to bear in mind how the Soviet experiment worked in Russia by destroying capital and reducing the country to starvation, misery and dire afflictions by disease, necessitating the outpouring of the world’s charity to succour the people of Russia. Surely there must ensue an outburst of indignation that trade unions should be prostituted to promote schemes of confiscation, spoliation and degradation. The tragedy of the whole business is that the decent and sane workers dare hardly whisper their thoughts in their lodges, but there must come a time 'when they will turn against those who take their orders from Moscow, and then they will come into their own, for the future will rest on the strength of moderate, sane Labor, purged of the evils attached to the extreme Reds.