LABOUR AND THE STATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 104, 1 May 1920, Page 13

LABOUR AND THE STATE.

GOVERNMENT CKAI/LEHGE. •'UNFIT TO GOVEKsV (From O:ir Special Correspondent.) LOXDON, February 10. The recent utterances of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill, taken I in conjunction with the Government's | blunt refusal to nationalise the coal mines, point to the fact that we are now entering upon a definite struggle fur | influence between the Government and the Labour . party. On Friday Mr. Lloyd tieorge repeated at v conference with municipal authorities what he had said on Tuesday in the House of Commons about the obstacle to progress in housing presented 'by the labour difficulties, and on Saturday Mr. Churchill returned to his attack, and in addressing his constituents at Dundee, reiterated the conviction he expressed some days before, that "Labour was unlit to govern." It is hardly conceivable that these tilings are " mere coincidences," and not the part of a settled policy of attack upon the Labour party inspired by a shrewd appreciation of the trend of public opinion. Apparently Mr. Lloyd George and his colleagues intend to try to convince the public that the responsibility for the main causes of the discontent rampant in most classes of society does not rest on them alone, but"falls also on the Labour party, or on the forces it represents. That in effect was what the Prime Minister said in the debate on the Address on Tuesday. He instanced ithe two grievances of housing j and the employment of demobilised men, and laid both at the door of trade union regulations, with a pointed challenge to tho leader of the Labour party. On Friday he dotted the " i's" and crosed the " t 's." He charged " those who are responsible" with failure to co-operate in solving the difficulty, and laid on the municipalities the task of doing everything in their power, so that the responsibility would lie not on them or on the Government, but on the people who denied labour. They must show, he said, that they had all done their best, and that the only thing needed was a disposition on of Labour to relax rules and regulations which interfered with the utilisation of the strength of the nation to solve, the problem. JJotli housing and the plight of demobilised men who are out of work, though there is work for them which they are willing to take, are causes of public irritation, and it is undeniable that some responsibility rests on the trade unions, indeed, those who have come to close grips with the housing problem are convinced J that of all the numerous obstacles to Imore rapid building—and they are many —the greatest of all is the labour difficulty created by the trade union rules and regulations, combined with "Cα canny." How far those same rules and regulations are affecting the community in other ways no nmn may say, hut that they are "adversely affecting production and employment seriously in almost every direction is certain, and unless the Labour party shows a disposition to secure some relaxation of the hampering trade union restrictions and voices condemnation of "en canny" among the unionists, the public will certainly apportion to it no small measure of the ; blame for the economic position which is the, chief cause of the ever-growing discontent among tho masses and uneasiness among the informed. Mr. Churchill's attack has been voted "clumsy" by ninny people, and no doubt hJ3 methods of saying "Labour is unfit to govern" was provocative. What he really meant was that the party had no effective policy for dealing with the very serious problems before us, but was simply trying to force upon the community gigantic experiments that might easily overturn our whole economic system—as, for example, nationalisation of the coal mines. The Labour party's leaders 'have themselves given point to Mr. Churchill's attack, which was not upon individuals, but was directed against the party's attitude towards the Constitution and the State itself. Take the crucial question on which tho Labour party has to make up its mind in th e near future—whether or no it will attempt to carry into effect the resolution passed by the Trade Union Congress at Glasgow to "compel" the Government to accept the nationalisation of th e mines. Mr. J. H. Thomas, writing in one of the newspapers, says: "There are obviously two courses open. One is to challenge the whole issue by a great industrial strike; the other is to continue the campaign to persuade and convert the electorate to the Labour point of view." The Labour party, according to him, is free to choose which of these two roads it Should take. To tho ordinary individual the parricidal suggestion of using the weapon of the general strike to compel Parliament and the Government of the day to accept a principle which has just been rejected an the House of Commons by an overwhelming majority, could only emanate from men decidedly "unfit to govern,'" and absolutely destitute of a true conception of what Government means. And be it remembered tie Glasgow resolution for putting the general strike compulsion on the Government was carried unanimously, as though nobody at that Congress of Labour saw or cared that the resolution premeditated an act of violence against tie State. ' It i« not, however, in Home affairs only that the leaders of the Labour party disclose their "unfitness" to conduct affairs. Nothing, indeed, is more calculated to inspire distrust in their capacity to govern than their attitude towards -the external affairs of the Empire, and, in particular, tiieir m#e or lees open approval of the appalling Tuid dearrading methods of Lenin and Trotsky in the existing , Russian regime.