LABOUR IN COUNCIL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3093, 16 January 1909, Page 4

LABOUR IN COUNCIL.

Labour is nothing if not autocratic—that is when Labour holds the reins of power. From what one reads and hears of the proceedings at Trades Union meetings a regular "Ironside" discipline is maintained amongst the members. That such rigid discipline must tend to destroy individuality —and is calculated to lessen the finent trait that any man can possess, viz., a self-respecting independence, must be admitted, but, perhaps, the motto of the Trades Council is "anything for a good cause," while taking it for

granted, that their views and theirs only are worthy of being put into operation. The Labour movement it seems requires "shaking up" —in our ignorance W3 thought that it had been shaken up rather too much, or too rapidly lately, but not so according to the Hon. J. Rigg. There is far too much sitting down and talking at present, and the remedial measure appears to lie in the direction of publishing a newspaper! Consequently there is a movement on fcot to establish a Labour journal, to be called the "Weekly Herald." At the masting of the Wellington Trades and Labour Council on Thursday evening last, it was decide 1 that it be a recommendation that there should be a compulsory union subscription to help the paper to success. Compulsory subscription is an eminently fins idea. We take it rhat there is something in the nature of arbitration in the prcnosal.