THE RISE OF LABOUR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1053, 30 October 1959, Page 11

THE RISE OF LABOUR

Sir,-In his interesting talk on the rise of Labour in New Zealand Professor W. T. G. Airey rightly attributes stresses within the Labour movement to differing opinions on the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. He refers to Mr Savage’s claim in 1935 to be taking up where Seddon left off. The liberal ideas which inspired Pember Reeves’s original 1894 Act are seen by Professor Airey as sanctifying the approval with which political Labour has regarded the processes of compulsory arbitration. But Professor Airey questions the credentials of this liberalism. Liberals, he claims, are faced with the perennial difficulty of drawing boundary lines between extremes, When they search for positive principles they are likely to accept Hegelian concepts such as those of T. H. Green, and these (we are told) are not far removed from Fascism. This is surely an extraordinary distortion of the most profound of English liberal thinkers. ate Professor Airey concludes that, in adopting the early liberal heritage, political Labour has been content to build within a capitalist social structure and has renounced the Marxist doctrine of class conflict. This has brought it into opposition with militant elements in the trade unions. In a capitalist society, it is ‘asserted, the machinery of state is the instrument of the capitalist class. Hence an organ such as the Arbitration Court cannot be expected to function as an impartial arbiter between workers and employers. To some this may seem a plausible conclusion, but I believe its assumptions to be wholly inapplicable to New Zealand conditions. Does Professor Airey maintain that the only "true liberal" is a Marxist? If so, I remain far from convinced.

J. H. M.

SALMON

(Wellington).