THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1909. THE AWAKENING OF LABOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9553, 28 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDA Y, JULY 28, 1909. THE AWAKENING OF LABOUR.

In our issue of yesterday we published | an article by the "Evening Post." f Wellington, in regard to Mr A. W. Hogg's peregrinations in the Dominion, and the paper in (question, virtually, expressed horror and amazement at the ex-Minister for Labour for delivering addresses, by invitation, on Labour questions to those most vitally interested in .them. The article refervsd tn contained several painful contradictions, ifaut we have no wish to waste our space in pointing them out. The "Post" has always been most partial to sugared shams, and having saidthis we can dismiss it and its alleged arguments from further comment. To those who have thrown in their lot with the Government, it is almost a matter ot agonising concern (hat the truth si cleverly concealed, for so long should at last appear. The illuminating light of truth, which is now bursting througli the clouds of deception, mal-adminirtra-tion, extravagance, and gross neglect of duty, is revealing what has and what- has not been done during the past years of plenty. Labour, a,l-; though on occasions it has developed suspicions,has never really seeu what ■ has been going on, or <if it has gripped the situation with some gree of correctness, it has never j possessed the backbone to denunciate forcibly its betrayers. For its connection with the Lib-Lab" association Labour alvvay wore a rather apologetic air, and never appeared to be quite happy in its relationship with its "true friend." How could it have been otherwise. "The Conserva tive party would not, of course, touch the Liberal Party with a forty-foot pole," as the phrase goes, and the latter party well knew ■that unless it could succeed in foisting itself upon the ranks of Labour that at would die a natural and heartily deserved death. We were told that the Government was a Labour Government. Strangers, experts (more or less), on social and economical problems came to our shores, and wrote beautiful articles with such headings as "Where Labour Rules," "The Working Man's Paradise," and so forth, while Liberal politicians with honeyed phrases and a magnificent air of bouodless largesse, lulled into sleep the giant whose awakening they feared mora than anything else in the political world. But the breaths of the sleeper are growing shorter, he stirs perceptibly, almost uneasily, in a little i while he will awake and whit will the J dreamer reuiae when the scales of sleep have fallen from his eyes? Then there will clearly be-seen a j debt burdened countrv, heavy and 1

widespread taxation, a country, pracically, without industrial industries '. f any great importance, millions nf • cres of unsettled land, and capital essential to the real success of Laiour) afraid to trust itself in a counry which possesses such a tramendius reputation for—"Socialism" ! In )lace of all those things which we night have had, and which Labour vould have shared in common with ;he rest of the psoplj of the Dominion, we have some labour legis-lation—-a few acts of Parliament, badly framed, for the most part, and lonsequenlly embarrassing in '.heir operation, and failing generally to confer those benefits which their promoters hoped for them. There is no necessity for a third party in the New Zealand Parliament, and we do nat think that there will be anything of Labour, in its interests, sho)kl have a party of its own, and the party that should face it should be the Capitalistic or Conservative party. There would then be a prospact of both sides obtaining some measure of justice, and of national development proceeding on proper lines. The "Lib-Lab" party, the enemy of both Capital and Labour, should, be eliminated.