THE LABOUR PARTY.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 191, 30 March 1893, Page 3

THE LABOUR PARTY.

A POLITICAL PLATFORM. The platform of the Dunedin Labour party is being circulated forsuggestions or approval. It contains 16 planks as follows : —A vote to every adult after a month’s residence in the colony ; every adult householder to have the right to vote in municipal elections; the local Boards to be elected annually on the Parliamentary franchise ; all Parliamentary elections on the same day, which is to be observed as a holiday, and all hotels to be closed; all education to be free and secular from the primary schools to the university ; elementary education to be compulsory up to 1-1, or the age at which the pupil passes the fifth standard ; high school to be open to all who have passed the sixth standard, or gained a junior scholarship; education endowments to be under the control of the Minister, and one universal set of standards and one set of small books for the colony ; the State to find employment for all who cannot find it for themselves, such work to be on the co-oper-ative principle ; statutory eight hours a day or 48 hours per week ; statutory prohibition of foreign labour under contract; repeal of the conspiracy laws relating to industrial disputes; compulsory arbitration ; State ownership of laud, railways, mines, and coastal marine, creation of an age pension fund by means of a progressive income tax, State bank of issue, elective governor, abolition of the Upper House and substitution of a revisionary chatpber of 15 members elected by and from the House, the whole number to meet together in the event of a deadlock ; the drink traffic to be absolutely controlled by the people ; a poll to be taken periodically in all licensing districts to decide whether the existing licenses, if any, shall be renewed, and if the vote is against a renewal, all the hotels, clubs, grocers’ bottle, and wholesale licenses shall cease to exist in such district; all on the Parliamentary roll to be entitled to vote. A conference is to be held at an early date between the representatives of all the Liberal and Labour bodies in the city, in order to secure unanimity of action in the interest of the Liberal cause at the forthcoming general election.