The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1917 THE P.L.L.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 142, 15 June 1917, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1917 THE P.L.L.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we van do.

Since it followed rlose upon the crushing defeat of the party in the Federal elections, special interest attaches; to the conference of the Political Labour League of New South Wales. The P.L.L. was behind Mr. Tudor, leader of the "official" Labour party, in his contest with Mr. Hughes, which the Prime Minister fought on the "win the war" issue. The rout was complete. The Nationalists won nil the eighteen Senate seats, and the new House of Representatives will

consist of r>2 or r>3 Nationalists tn 22 or 123 P.L.L. mm. But in the. proceedings at the P.L.L. Conference there is do sign of real jjrace. Mr. Tudor and iits friends -were very in.lignant with Mr. Hughe* for claiming to lie the "win the war" party, and thereby easting n reflection on the loyalty and war enthusiasm of the other side. Shortly hefore the elections the P.L.L. expelled Mr. Brookfield, a State member of Parliament. her-anse of n disloyal utterance. Some people smiled, and maid the action was a little belated. They -will consider their cynicism justified by the proceedings at tho P.L.L. Conference, which make it clear that the claim made by Mr. Hughes could not be advanced for the P.L.L.. that is, assuming that the conference was representative, of the League. It is sad to see how small the war looms on the P.L.L. horizon. A writer in the "Sydney Morning Herald" notes as remarkable that the conference could go through two whole sessions, covering a presidential address, "without a reference to the overwhelming fact of the I «ar." And rervdtng through the reports of the debates that are to hand one is struck by tho general aloofness of the j conference from the struggle, the inI difference displayed towards ite tremendous issues, and the narrowness of delegates' outlook. One delegate said he ■would fight in no war, and would ask no other member of the working class to fight. Another eaid that he would be in favour of war if it were waged on the capitalists. A third suggested that the reports of German atrocities were merely stories circulated to keep alive the war spirit in the. interests of capitalism. Tf that is so, capitalism must be diabolically clever, and it must have very pliant material. It can persuade the world that the Lusitania was sunk, and hundreds of innocent people, killed, when as a matter of fact she is still running between and (names deleted in compliance with the censorship). It can suborn such highly-placed people ac the American Ambassador in Berlin, who says he had to threaten to shoot the savage dogs kept in prison camps before the authorities would stop using them, and the American Ambassador in Brussels, who has described German conduct in Belgium as the foulest crime in history. There was no falling away in the bitterness against conscription. Delegates marked with this taint were ruthlesely expelled. One of these men was aske.l, in the middle of an explanation of his position, to say whether he was in Favour of conscription. "I am in favour of Australia doing its duty, and evenman ": the rest of the sentence was loet in uproa.r. One gentle d*iegare said he would "drive down tn tbfi uttermost depths of hell" everybody who had anything to do with conscription. There were flashes of sense in the proceedings. The rigorous protest by Mr. Storey, Leader of the State Labour party, against the proposal to settle the war by negotiation, was one. But the whole thing is eorry reading. It may be eaid that these men are extremists and not representative of Australian Labour; we ourselves have always been careful to keep this consideration in mind. They are certainly not representative of the men who have gone to fight, for the sol.liers cast a vote of over two to one for the Nationalist party. But the point about the P.L.L. is this, that it is the organisation behind the Federal Parliamentary Opposition. Mr. Tudor may protest that he, is just as anxious as anybody to win the war, but he cannot explain away the P.L.L. It is significant that Mr. Tudor, the. Leader of the Federal Opposition, -wae refused a hearing at a recruiting meeting in Melbourne the other day—not by disloyalists, Wfc by loyalists.