THE LABOUR PARTY IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3064, 5 March 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LABOUR PARTY IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

Anothkb week has passed away, and the labour members who were eleefcud to hold the balance of power between the contending factions make no sign. Surely never were such high hopes so dismally falsified by ignoble failure. A number of the new party, instead of insisting on the reforms J they were returned to secure, have become mere joints in Mr Dibbs' tail, and are dragged about after hia stern in the way such joints are wont to bo. They are assisting to mike it more difficult for every family to live. Single men don't feel the duties much; but to every working man with a wife and children, they are terribly and most unfairly oppressive. It is satisfactory, however, to note that resistance outside the House is intensifying, and that it is even yet vory doubtful whether the new tariff will ever become law. Apart from the fact that the Labour members who form the majority may at any moment discover how they are being tooled, for the benofit of a handful of capitalists, there is the Legislative Council to reckon on. Protectionists boast that they have '• nobbled" the Labour men by threatening them with a dissolution, and the loss of their £6" a week. As for the Council, they aver that it will pass the tariff because it will not be able to find any other way of evading a land tax. Arguments of this kind show incidentally how iniquitous are the innthods which are ralied upon to " bnll-duze " the country, and how destitute of valid justification is the policy which the Government are endeavouring to force upon it. But these sordid explanations are very inconclusive. They fail to cover the whole ground. Labour members and Legislative councillors have consciences like other men. The "sordid" theory takes no account of this factor. Yet it may assert itself at any moment, and destroy the whole iniquitous fabric at effectually a* Sampson the temple of the Philistines.—Exchange.