UNITED LABOUR PARTY

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10710, 4 November 1912, Page 6

UNITED LABOUR PARTY

(Inserted by the; executive of tho United .Labour Party.) YOU MAY ANSWER PLEASE. "Xo," said tho Sugar Trust. "Yes,", said tho Court of Appeal. "Thank .you.." said the Sugar Trust, "you know I thought I might bo guilty." The Court of Appeal goes one stop nearer making available for public uso any information necessary to determine h.r.v much the people pay for what they are getting from private monopolies. The people, might to be willing to pay for all they got. But they ought to know just wh:t they are getting. The hooks of the Sugar Trust may .help some. !iut then the, books of the Merchants Association may conic along also. Maybe the association will object to themember dtip of the court, same way as it did to the membership of the ( ; ost of Living Commission, and refuse to tostil'v. And then

A BAD RECOKD—A BETTER. POSSIBILITY.

Major-Genera! Leonard Wood, chief of stiff of the United States Army, recently promulgated an order throughout the military service requiring that any officer of enlisted men who "shall be absent from duty c.u account of \ disease resulting from his own intemperate use of drugs or r.leoholie liquors or other misconduct, shall forfeit his pay for the -period during which he is unable to perform his rogiflar duties.'' His o'-der is in accordance with legislation in the Army Approbation Bill of this year. It is in hue with I the efforts of the war department a'ul i especially of the surgeon general, to I reduce the amount of dissipation in »the army. Social diseases will he regarded as due to misconduct- upon the. part of the officers and men.— "The Leader." These words carry with them a most serious reflection on military camp life. There is no reason why tho camp life of .soldiers should, not. he as sane and sanitary .as the school life of university men. But the school life of university men could he made better than it is. If military. tr:imng and service ' were made a part of a system of industrial training and service and the army officer given industrial duties and responsibilities after the same May as the army engineer and the marine hospital surgeon and given civil tasks, then rational employment, with rational rewards for service and really human conditions, could he provided for the defence forces of a nation. Some time it will he understood that uselessness in time of peace is no necessary qualification for efficiency in time of war.

KEJR HAIIDIE

The Chicago World, speaking of Keir Ha i die's visit to the United States, says : "What is there about the sayhigs of this humble Scot who hails from Britain's - Parliament and Britain's coal mines that smooths away the barriers between workers and brings them to a realisation of the fact that there really is no barrier at all between them? Keir Hardie is a Socialist from start | to finish. When he talks to non-Soc- , udist iiuhmi.its he makes it clear that I ho i s .a political actionist always. He ; places in's politics and his unionism ' on equal lootings. And men find their prejudices against Socialism wiped out. bor there is something about tho way this man preaches his doctrines, something about the manner in which he makes known tho great truths of the working class philosophy, something that strikes home to workers. Keir Hardie's Socialis mseem s to bo a.Socialism of deeds, a doctrine of works—just the same, of course, as' the Socialism of all the rest of us/but set forth in a light that carries conviction and leaves no room for prejudice and foolish fears." The National Organiser's trip to the South Island was most satisfactory. The Dunedin meeting was a great success. Almost the whole body of spec-!' ial workers remained after the public address for a special session, and things are underway for tho formation of a provisional body which will push at once the preliminary work for tho municipal elections. The same thing happened at both Timaru and Christchurch. At Christchurch an effort was made by an or-

ganised group to make impossible the public discussion of tho United Labor Party, but the police were called order enforced, the message given, and one of the most enthusiastic meetings of workers over held in Christclmreh was held at the close of tho address. There can be very little doubt about it Dunedin, Christehurch, a nd "Wellington will he sure to he carried by the Liber Party in municipal elec. tions.

We have Intel oouncilrnen in all of them, Mayors in some of them, hut the. programme now is a Mayor in each of them, with a good working majority in tho Town Councils at their backs. "While it is certain that this can bo done, if is equally certain that it cannot lie done unless those interested in seeing it done keep busy, stay busy and are busy with things that count. Mr Smith continues his very effective organisation campaign, in Wellington. It is greatly to be regretted that at an early date, on account of fmiily afl'ai'-s he will be compelled to take a brief vacation, but Chapman is on hi:, way home from Groat Britain, Sullivan goes to work next week, and new men in the South are getting ready, with the re?ult that within the next month it is certain there will be net less than four assistant national organisers constantly pushing the work. In three months the number ought i/: be carried to a dozen. If that can be done in six 1 months and these men kept busy, with proper support we will not only carry the principal seats i» the municipal, elections, but v/e will build the mafftino that will elect the next Parliament. En route the other day up from Dunedin. a enuplo of farmers on the i train, learning that the National Or- | Jganiser was aboard, looked him up, | asked for a chat, and the chat was a.' hundred- mile,-; long. But the farmers went away loaded with litcnturc, i declaring that th« land policy of the United Labour Partv would be the best of all policies possible to apply in New Zealand. That was the:sent impression, but they wovo enthusiastic for its further study, and they took- the tools, to do it with. : MeMnnus is'taking a rest, a»d this is the way he is resting. Tie is earning ])is living working at his trade, as a general labourer. But he has already in hand one new union of more than 200 members, and another on its way. Tho Dominion executive will vote a vacation to any working man in New Zealand, who will earn his expenses and create a new union even with half the number of members that this new Dunedin body is sure to have and which MeManus is helping to create. The call keeps coming for a United

I Labour Party representative on the West' Coast. The Furniture Workers are sending an organiser, Dan Sullivan, to the West. Co-st, and Ue gees with authority to speak f<:r an* to act for the United Labour Party. Those wishing to eomunicato with him or to co-operate with him while en the coast can reach him at the Trades Hal 1 ., Ohristchurch. Mr Yeitch is in with .; call f'-v » now tr.vjos union in Wnnganui. So mote it f.io. Syd. Smith reports things moving in New Plymouth. MeHugh had splendid meetings throughout the North Island. Ho has done splendid work in. Wellington. He will be. sailing on the Nth, and will carry per--1 sonal messages to friends in America from the writer of these notes.

OUR POSITION.

CLEARLY STATED BY HON ' i. ■ GEORGE FOWLDS. In the Farmers' Union Advocate fulsome weeks past the Hon George Fowlds h;.s been engaged, against considerable numerical odds, in a correspondence on the taxation of land values. The letters for and against have frequently run, all told, to six or eight columns in a single issue. •In the Advocate of October 19th. Mr Fowlds writes — "It-is-manifestly impossible for me, witli ;:ny consideration for your valuable 1 space, to reply in detail to the six columns ov :■■> of criticisms- in your issue cf September 28th. But si detailed reply is, happily, unnessarv for the criticisms are for the. most part absolutely he-side the mark My position is (1) that the\farmer, like every other laud-user U morally 1 entitled to dl the improvements he I makes in the land and to all the , wealth he produces from the land; (2) that, all his improvements and all. the wcalth'-'he-produces should be ex- j empt'from taxation 1 >rrfch local and national ; (3) that, on the very sa-me ] j principle that the farmer is entitled , I to all ho produces, tin? community is j morally entitled to the communitycreated land values arising from the nns«nc«, growth, collective industry, enterprise, and expenditure of the community; (4) that, instead of taking the farmer's private earnings for public purposes such public earnings, am) such public earnings alone, should be taken for public purposes; (o) that land monopoly and land speculation grievously handicap the farmer .by forcing up the price of his raw material, t'ho land ; (tt) that taxes on improvements penalise, the working farmer for the benefit of the idle specu•btor: (7) that excessive railway freights, taxes'on improvements, taxes on necessaries and especially the so-called 'protective' taxes, which put a t:<x of 20 to o0 per cent on the farmer to 'protect' town industries, are grossly unjust to the fanner, and enormously overtax r.nd hamper the farming industry. "Lot your readers compare that petition with the very different positions attacked, for the most part, by yourself and your correspondents, and they will see how very much beside > the mark their and your criticisms are. "Xo knowledge of actual farming operations is needed to enable me to intelligently discuss, and, indeed, to lay down with absolute certainty the above propositions. They are as sure as that two and two make four, as unanswerable as a proposition of Euclid. Instead, therefore, of following: your correspondents through the mazes in which they have.entangled them-' 1 :, selves, I challenge them to attack and refute, any of the above propositions." And, dealing with the supposed necessity for "protective" tariffs, Mr Fowlds declares tint—"Where State aid ivS needful for any industry, a State bonus is a far cheaper, far more effective, and far more open and above board method of. giving State, aid." It remains to be seen whether any of the opponents of the taxation of land values will take up Mr Fowlds' •challenge and attempt to attack and refute any.-or all of the sound and unanswerable propositions that he so clearly and trenchantly lays down. One might safely lay long odds that instead of attempting any such impossible task they will continue as before to set up straw-men of their own manufacture and doughtily knock them a'botrfc to their heart's content.