LABOUR IN CONFERENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10048, 23 July 1910, Page 4

LABOUR IN CONFERENCE.

The labours of the delegates who assembled in Auckland at the call of their unions and other organisations have ended, and we have before us as we write the concrete results of the deliberations of the congress. The feeling that is uppreraost in one's mind h one of more or less wonderment that men who are, ordinarily, nothing if not practical, should have formulated so unpractical a programme. With much that the programme contains many of the workers will cordially and properly agree; but with still more of it they can have neither agreement nor sympathy I Some men there are who believe it to be nothing short of a crime to accumulate any sort of wealth. Many of these men have no sympathy with I thrift or striving after a competency. But we will not get into a by-path. Our main concern is with the formation of the policy of the worker's league. Not to put too fine a point upon it, the adoption of the programme} means the giving in of one's adhesion to the general principle of State ownership in every conceivable direction. This is where the majority of the workers break off from the Labour ranks, and seek a less dangerous body to which to attach themselves. The fact of it is that a great many of the men who advocate straight out Collectiveism want to find a royal road to their objective. But the more thoughtful of the workers know full well that there is no such road. Reforms, if they are to last, must come'slowly. Every movement which is to vitalise must have public sympathy, public approval at it back. To bring about what the programme of the La bour Conference proposes would cont: a very great number fo million?-. Whore ara those millions to come J from? To compel a forty-hour week wouIJ mean the destruction of many indiisitries; to talk of the State entering upon competitive manufacturing would be to court disaster. If the Labour Party would think out a line of policy and mark out a few things for accomplbF-ment, public opinion might be drawn over

and into Labour's treritory; but the ! prugramme set forth as the result of the Auckland Conference will scare the pubic and injure the Labour cause almost beyond hope of repair. We had hoped that some of the assembled delegates wonli have formulated I a scheme whereby lhe co-operative principle could have been introduced into the industrial life of our Dominion. Uat no; evidently the conference just closed is opposed to the ccpiincipK I* was notice-

able that during the discussion of the ( conference, there was a distinct ob- ] jection to Socialism of the more pronounced type; but in tue programme now published, . the Socialists appear to have seized the whole position If a few needed reforms had been approved, the ranks of Labour I might have closed up, and those re- j forms could have been brought about But there is not even the remotest chance of the workers of this Dominion combining to enter upon a campaign which would, if successful, result in a greater tyranny than the worst effurts of combined capitalism ever induced. No one can honestly deny that there are many directions in which reform ought to be sought where the toilets are concerned.