UNITED LABOR PARTY

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 13 January 1913, Page 3

UNITED LABOR PARTY

CONDUCTED BY THE DOMINION EXECUTIVE COUNCIL. (The Easter Conference of th<rTJnited Labour Party voted to mako no paper itg special organ, but to provide official news and comments to any paper promising to regularly publish the same. The paper is not responsible for .this column and the party assumes no responsibility for any uttarancas of the paper except for its own official utterances in this department. IMMIGRATION, EDUCATION AND MONOPOLY. In the publication of the summary of the national debt of New Zealand and among the lines of expenditure there mentioned is found an item of £463,002 on account of immigration undertakings by the Now Zealand Government. But an item that is not found in that connection is the further fact that, after this vast expenditure in advertising and in subsidising undertakings for the purpose of increasing the population of NW Zealand, XemZealand is now making a- record

having people leave the country as rapidly as thev arrive. ' A BAD RECORD.

It :s not meant that the people return on the same boats on which they arrived. A large portion of them are quite unable to do so, but they remain a.s emplovees in New Zealand only lone enough to get money enough to provide for the return Journey, and tins-. 1 who come and become permanent residents in the country are nearly wualler! bv the native-born sons of Now Zealand, who. for the sake of better opportunities than their native land can offer, forsake the land of their birth.

Tt is certainly an unfortunate record. The fight is new being made in London to increase the immigration to New Zealand, and the fight is also being made in New Zealand by the same forces which are most anxious to increase immigration to make the conditions of labor less acceptable to , Labor in New Zealand than they alreadv are. NOTHING TO OFFER. One reason why immigration has / been so hard to increase both in Aus- '■. tralia and New Zealand is because the newcomer is offered Iris choice between submitting to conditions of employment not altogether different from those from which thev had sought to escape in the Home Country, or only baekblock opportunities to which he is unwilling to submit for the sake of any advantages which it is possible to offer him in that connection. There is another difficulty in this whole- matter of immigration obtained by paid for advertising and subsidised agencies of the sort heretofore relied unon. And that is that only those who have been unable to secure, the be<-t opportunities at Homo are induced to make the venture of the long journey and the uncertainties involved in immigration. Tn everv European country those who are "well content" at Home are not strongly tempted to emigrate in order to take advantage of any industrial or commercial opportunities now offering in New Zealand, but the unvemoloved. the assisted emigrant, the unfortunate, those who have fallen out w'th their emplovers, and especially thaw who have fallen out with the police regulation's, are stro'Kdv inclined to accept offes which New Zealand ndverfiejrig offers for 'another chance in "God's Own Cc."try." THE BEST ARE WANTED. ;

Is it not pos-sihle to so organise the industrial opportunities and the institutional life of New Zealand that the world will.be'induced to send to us not its unfortunates and its dependants and its derelicts, but, instead of these, its .strongest, most ambitious, most worthy, especially among its young. New Zealand is not importing, and it is not seeking to import any great reinforcements and the most skilled workers the most pitiful thing about the life of the average New Zealaftder is the very large proportion of those native-born and who have grown up in this country, and have gone from the schools to children's jobs. . Whoever begins life as a child worker is almost certain to end his life as an unskilled worker. The most commendable thing in. the life of Now Zealand at this time is the spplpenpdid agitation which is going on among the progressive teachers of the Dominion in the effort to make the schools of the country of greater service in the point of skill as related

to the industrial efficiency of the future. But for the present no other misfortune is greater in this country than this lack of skilled labor, and no other thing so marked as characteristic of the usual immigrant as tho fact that he is almost always an unskilled worker, and, further, that tho effort on the part of the Government to increase immigration is directed almost exclusively to increasing the number of unskilled workers. LACK OF OPPORTUNITY—- ' NATTYE NEW ZEALANDERS. But the most progressive teachers in New Zealand are complaining that the greatest difficulty in creating and maintaining interest in tho development of industrial capacity is the lack of opportunity within New Zealand to find an outlet for making available this capacity when it has been achieved by. the educational institutions in this country. Over and over again the brightest and most capable of the young men and women of New Zealand, horn in New Zealand, trained in New Zealand's schools, depart from New Zealand in order to find a place whore they can put to good use the powers obtained through the services of the New Zealand schools. A QUESTION OF OPPORTUNITIES. -EDUCATION.

And because this is so it at once becomes evident, both as to the matter of securing the most desirable emigrant and of retaining as citizens of this country the best of its nativeborn, that the problem of first import-, ance in New Zealand is to provide opportunities by which the best equip ment, the best capacity, and the best purposes cherished by tho sons of New Zealand, can be realised within New Zealand.

If les.s than the amount expended in the Department of Emigration, with such unsatisfactory results, had been expended in opening up <ind ■equipping the educational institutions for the direct, use of the young workers of New Zealand, hotter results would have heen attained rNDUSTET Aj\D THE YOUNG t

This, .however, would not have solved tho problem unless the .natural resources had been unlocked and the grasp of private monopoly had been broken so that improved capacity oonld. have found employment, in tins country. Tt is unfortunate for youti men or women either to become factory hands during the very time when completing their maturity they are passing through the most critical years of all their lives. From fourteen to twenty years of 'age are tho years during which the physical, mental, and moral status of men and wo- ; men is more seriously affected, fraught with greater dangers, faced with greater possibilities, than any like period in all the' following yeans of all their lives. It is, then that they need the nurture, the shelter, the instruction, the. training, the care of the most skilled, the most trustworthy, and the most capable of all the race. But just when these young people need the playground, the gymnasium. ' the school, the means of helpful employment, the special care, the wise counsel, of an informed, disinterested and kindlv mirpose is when they are thrust into the. world with little skill, with no experience, without guidance, and to take their chances with all the I brutality and roguery of the indus i trial and commercial world. Less than the- money already in- ! vested in immigration could have open od up and established an educational institution with establishments widely distributed throughout New Zealand with land, stock, tools, ens, farms, orchards, and factories in which the young could learn all the necessary lessons of productive capacity and at the same time with four hours a day of service provide for their own ..support and for the support of the institution which would have been provided for them.

SELF-SUPPORTING EDUCATION. Actual ' experience demonstrates that a young n-oman will learn faster, will achieve more from an educational point of view with four hours of interesting, helpful, productive labor in which they themselves are made the. beneficaries of their own of forts than they can possibly learn without such, employments. Less than the amount already invested in trying to increase immigration could have established such an institution on such lines that by its own natural growth through the wealth created by its own services, within the period of n. very few years would have placed •such educational opportunities within the reach of every young man and woman in New Zealand FREE TKE SOU,--END PRIVATE MONOPOLY. If at tilio ■ samo time the Government would do as it has the right- to do, m fact, would do what it hn.s no moral right not to do, that is, fix a definite price on the unimproved value of every acre of land, city and conntry. Crown lands private lands, endowment lands, and all the rest, 'that would iix the measure of private interests in unimproved land value* and that interest could- ho well admitted to belong to the people who now hold the legal titles covering thes<. land*. On those unimproved land values so fixed, the necessary taxes for public purposes, both national and locnT. oould bo placed, and then there could be publicly appropriated all addition, al unimproved land values which should bo added to the prices so fixed for oneo and all. In that way every acre of land in New Zealand would be immediately so'related to the workers of the world "that they would be able to get out of employment in New Zealand all that their skill could put into industry in New Zealand.

A RECORD OF PROGRESS. Let tho cables tell tho story round the world and advertising for immigration would not be necessary. The population of Now Zealand wmfkl-go up with leaps and bounds. Every private interest would bo protected. Every public interest would be secure and the progressve workers of the world would come to New Zealand, not to go away again, but to take advantage of her marvellous resources, of her splendid climate, of "her progressive spirit. The population would increase so that instead of New Zealand being broken in purse and disappointment in spirit through the cost of a single warship and the maintenance of a. military system which would be incapable of withstanding on its own account the smallest army or of opposing the smallest fleet of the smallest country on the face of tho earth possessed of fleets and armies, would speedily become a great and powerful nation.

All the world is afraid of Japan. No one anywhere is afraid, of New Zealand. The climate, the fertility of the soil, the territory covered, the industrial possibilities of New Zealand are as great as those possessed bv Japan. Now Zealand can have the pick of the world's population. She can bring the best, the most intelligent the most miblic spirited. New Zealand can be if it will consent to be one of the great nations of the earth. AN APOLOGY TO THE DOG.

Why not do it? The only one t-> object is the "dog in a manger." Possibly this expression calls for an apology. It is a reflection upon tho dog. T7ie men who have cornered New Zealand's resources, who do not develop them themselves, who have not tho training, the experience, nor tho capital to make use of these indus trial possibilities, but who through the power of private monopoly privately appropriate the scanty earnin srs of the few n'-'ople who are in New Zealand, doom New ZenWvd to rietrlec.t and helplessness. They do this while they advertise for people to come to a country where the. advantages offered are so poor that while thev come, misled bv misleading advert;sements. thev will not stay. No door hp.c over done a thiiif like that. NEW ZE.AT.AVI>—-A ORI?AT AND POWERFUL N/VTTON.

Unlock the :nn.fcnral resources of New Zealand. Give support t« the progressive tendencies in the.educational life of Now Zealand. Appropriate for public purposes the wealth oublicly. created. Protect in the bawls of each individual the wealth which bis own industry and enterprise shall create.. Do this for a dozen vea-rs and New Zealand will not need to advertise. The ■ntlw nations of the earth will voluntarily follow tho example of New Zealand in order to retain for themselves enough of the intelligence and. enterorise of their own people to maintain' their own existence.

Which sha.ll it be, New Zeal an dors, a tinpot policy or- a movement strong, continuous, resistless for a real and genuine national life? The workers of Now Zealand are. demanding progress. The Lalror movement of New Zealand will see to it that this progress is achieved. The United Labor Party is the one aggressive, cortstajit-ly-grawing movement among, the people of this country with a programme broad enough, a. spirit humane enough, and, a purpose true enough to convince the ' judgment and capture the conscience of this nation. The future of "New Zealand is in the hands of the United Labor Party. Are you for it or against it?. "Choose ye this day whom ye will servo."