UNITED LABOR PARTY

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 21 November 1912, Page 6

UNITED LABOR PARTY

CONDUCTED liV THE DOMIN-

lON EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

(The Easter Conference of tho United Ltbour Party voted to DK'kn no p., IHM jt.s snot-inl organ, but to provide official news unci comments to any paper promising to regularly publish the .same. Tho paper is not reypoiusible for this column, and. tho partv assumes no responsibility for any utterances of tin? paper except for its" own official utterances in this department.)

THE TENANT FA RATER

AN!) Titf: UNITED LABOUR

I'ARTY

HOW TO BUY A FARM

To the KdiLor Labor Page

bir, — I liave just this minute road "How to buy a farm" in to-day's issue of tho "Times," and would earnystly .suggest that the matter as printed be published in leaJlet form and distributed in thousands amongst farmers all over the country. I 1 urt.her, although, poor (just bow poor God onbv 1 hereby promise to contriV".". l Ls per week to the United iiabnr Party's funds from to-day, and will post one month's subscription out of tliO' first money 1 get hold ofam, etc., TKNANT KAPMEH. Hero is the article referred to ; "'I am earning «50s a week. Of this sum I have been able to pave 10s per week. That amounts to £2O a year. I have been trying to save money to startipn a piece of land for myself. I had a piece of land in mind, but it has each year adva.nced in price for a larger sum than the whole* amount of my savings. Will someone tell me how to buy a. farm under such circumstances?'

"Tlni* is the .substance ol' ;i lott-or just to liiiiul. The lust year-for which reports have 1 11 matte available the unimproved land values increased over the previous year by £10.000,000. The increase. in Savings Bank deposit? for the same year were, in round numbers. L'l.ooo 000. As long as 1.111 improved hind values increase ten times ys fast av< do - tlio savings accounts ivill someone explain lioav tlio average man by the average savings rati ever liuy tlie average farm? "Still Mi" Ma«sey says thai lie 1 stands for making every man his own landlord. That'si a good idea, Mr Massey. How arc you going to do it? So far the only answer lias been to provide cheap money for those who have land to sell. That means a further attack on the landless hy inincreasing unimproved land values 011 tlie one hand and making savings more difficult on the other. "Who will make answer to this question? The national organiser of the United Labor Party will give a copy of 'The Struggle for Existence' for the best answer, and ho will pul>lisli the answer and recommend it to

th« consideration of Mr Massey. "Get'the question clearly. As long as the. unimproved land values increase ten times faster than do the ■savings of the workers, how can the average man with the average savings buy the average .farm? "This question is especially com-

mended to the attention of farmers

and of farmers' hoys. The editor ha,s an easy answer. Send him yours." That states the situation. If tlio

landlord does not see the point tlie tenant farmer doe: 1 . The farm hand does. The farmer's boy who wants to be a farmer with a farm of his own can see the point. Tn his case Massey can do nothing.

All he proposes to do as well as all lie hay doiie will only make the matter worse.

Tlie sell'-cmployed farmer who gots

only the wealth he is able to du; out of his own ground can see the point. He knows that the only way he can take tlio advantage of unimproved

land values is to sell his farm and <;i?iusc to bo a farmer. But lie does not want to coast! to be y, farmer.

Instead he would rather add to hi, acres than, dispose of the acres which he already has. But Massey would make this work of enlargement harder —not easier.

Oivt of 104,000 workers on the farm lands of New Zealand less than seven thousands are benefited by the present land system. That leaves nine-ty-seven thousands who are losers. Ninety thousand majority ig a fairly Kood vote out of a hundred and four thousand directly concerned. That

is about tho way tho matter will stand in a fia;ht between the Liberal-Reform party and the United Labor Party on tho land question tho hour the United Labor Party platform is undo rstood.

lien like our correspondent, who have mighty little 'money but who do have a bit of "good horse sense," are going to see that their .neighbours do understand, that will be the. end of the war.

KEI )EHATION TACTTCS. ADOPTED BY THE -VIASKEY GOVERNMENT.

The ofnicia! .statement of tho Federation of Labor concerning tho, situation in Waihi is quite as interesting iis anything recently appearing; in the public press. The federation statement deals at great length, with the insulting words and brutal throats and tho lawless conduct of those opposed to the strike. But it no longer presents the federation itself as a Avarliko. militant, fearless, aggressive movement, seeking martyrdom on the scaffold. and declaring for and supporting a war pol-

Ono would understand by this statement that the federation people have never insulted anyone, the men have never been disorderly, the women have never abused cacti, otner, the worst oii'euce viiu-.n a woman nay committed is to be "standing quietly by," while the outrage ot - "unrowing oil.ies of tea into their laces'" was perpetrated.

.Duos tne ".txnrnnkm ' siuua lor the detente hi t;ie outrages reported in its oini columns I-" Ijoos ic- fcand for the malicious characterisation of the people wiiit'll have filled the news columns, jn;t in tho ".Dominion" alone, but all other papers which have been obliged to depend upon -die Press Association : j

iy the "Dominion" the champion of the law when it can list; the law against its enemies, iincl the "ciiampioti of disorder and lawlessness when disorder and lawlessness may lie used to servo its own purposes? There can be no question now. The. effort has ' been made deliberately. The "Dominion'' ]ia« been the spokesman and the prophet and the defender in this effort. The elfort has been made to confuse the whole labor movement of ..New Zealand with the tactics of the Federation, of 'Labor, and as has been been stated before, to put the whole Labor movement into a single sack, and then under the pretence of maintaining order, to sink the by their enemies. This will be news to the friends ;itul champions of militant tactics, of a class war and that war to be waged not in obedience to tin* capita-list laws a<ul without regard to the capitalist authorities.

Tiie United J.-abor Party has refused to give its support to ['he indefensible. tactics of the federation. The effort has been made to make it appear that it is impossible to dissent from the tactics of the federation without giving support to the policy of tlio Ma.ssey Government. No position is more absurd. The great public of Now Zealand ninety-nine of a hundred of the workers of New Zealand, iiavo nover been in sympathy with,' and never will be in'sympathy with, the disorderly, impossible tactics of the federation, and the ".Dominion" and its friends will not bo long in making, a discovery that the great body of the people of New Zealand will not stand, for tbe recent outrages perpe-

tratod in Wailii under the pretence of maintaining order. -Regardless of tho wrong conduct of the miners, the agencies of the law must not he used to take sides in an industrial dispute. The only possible apology for the pre- . scneo of the police in Wailii is with an even hand, and without discrimination, to protect all parties against the wrong conduct of all comers. If tho "Dominion" insists that this is being done, will it explain the absence of a single blow struck or a single arrest made in connection with the disorderly occurence reported in its .own news columns? Until it has done so fair-minded people will reserve final judgement for further information on many matters, hut in the meantime in. the attacks and coun-ter-attacks between the Federation of Labor and the Massev Government each party to the war is telling a good bit of plain truth about tho other. Tho decent people of Xew Zealand,

i.he> real Lalwr movement of 'Now

ealand, must not be directed into taking sides Ln a conflict where both sides aro wrong. The federation lias already been discredited. The Massey Government cannot avoid falling into the same discredited position. It lias adopted the practices of the federation and hero in its own eol'imns it defends tho tactics of the federation when practise! by its own side in the fight.

The workers must continue their contention that thene tactics are wrojng. They cannot be justiiied, they must not be used by anyone. Mr Massey and his associates and Mr Semple and his associates shall not lw permitted to indulge in violence, tho one. against the other. Tho demand of every employer who is not u scoundrel' and of every working man who is uot a fool must bo that industrial disputes phnll : -e honestly and peacefully adjusted "on the Line's of legally established agreements and awards, by methods of eonei liation and arbitration." Thb' is the position of the United Labor Party, set out in iusfc words in its platform. The Massey Government cannot be permitted to protend to be the chair* pionH of arbitration while it refuses to remove the abuses from the Arbitration Court and correct, the defect." in the arbitration law. and. while re- \ fusing to do this, use the public power 'temporarily- in its pip.session to make the officers of the. law the abettors and defenders of federation tactics whon used against tho federation.

Tf the working people of New Zealand permit this outrage against the federation. notwithstanding the outrages of the federation, the same authorities will stand ready and will oerpetrnto the same outrages against the workers everywhere, and, under the pretence of maintaining order make tlie Government itfxdf the chief awnt in the criminal use of lawless violence in industrial disputes. This strike is lost. There has n n V p[- been a time when there was the shadow of a chance that it should not bo lost. The place to strike, now is at the ballot-box. That strike must be for industrial peace and for industrial just-ice in order thai, theie may be industrial peace.