LABOUR CONFERENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 161, 10 July 1922, Page 7

LABOUR CONFERENCE.

ADDITIONS TO OBJECTIVE REJECTED. Tho New Zealand Labour party C on-elud.-d its confer- nee on Saturday, Mr. F. R. Cooke. presiding. T:>n conference received a remit from tho Canterbury Trades and Labour Council proposing to add to the objective of tiic party tho following:—(1) That the New Zcnlr.nd Labour party cannot simply seize the available machinery of the State and set it going for the objective and platform. (2) The New Zealand Labour party must break up. shatter the available ready machinery of State, and not confine itself to merely taking possession of it. (3) Not the abolition of representative institutions and elective principles, but the conversion of the representative institutions from mere talking shops into working bodies. (4) Not a Parliamentary, but a working corporation, legislative and executive at one and the same time. Instead of deciding once in three years which member of tli? ruling class is to represent and rs-press tho people in Parliament. Universal suffrage to sorvc the people orgrmiscd in workers' councils (being at ail times subject to recall) as a means of securing the necessary workers, controllers, clerks, and so forth for its business in the same way as individual suffrage serves any employer in his busiBess. The remit was rejected. The whole of the remits dealing with the land policy were referred to the incoming committee for a report before the next conference, which takes place at Christchurch at Easter. A remit that a Stat" Housing Department be established with a view to providing cheaper and better homes for the people by the elimination of private profits was carried. The following remit was referred to the executive: —"That it be a recommendation to the National Conference that all Labour party int"rests be stabilised: (a) That all local branches and L.R.C.'s shall hold their annual meeting not later than the third week in February to issue talance-sheets, reports, prepare remits and appoint delegates to the new Provincial Labour Council if such are so appointed, (b) That Provincial Labour Council Executives be established throughout New Zealand which shall lold their annual meetings every Easter, consisting of delegates from all its local branches and L.R.C.'s, to receive and discuss remits from such branches and prepare same for the National Conference, (c) That the National. Labour Executive shall hold its permanent office at the political centre, namely, Wellington, and nowhere else, and at the same centre the annual conference of the New Zealand Labour party shall be held and nowhere else, and that the said annual conference shall consist of duly authorised paid-member delegates from all financial branches and centres and that the said dtlegates shall meet in conference in the said city on or about the opening of the New Zealand Parliament every year, ■whenever that may be."' Resolutions were passed affirming the principle of the right to work or "maintenance" in connection with the question of unemployment, and affirming unswerving support of the principle of selfdetermination for all nations, including Egypt and India. The principle of tho economical equality of the sexes was endorsed, and equal pay for equal work by men and women was embodied in the party's platform. The conference passed resolutions protesting against any further "cut" in the ■wages of public servants and condemning the action of the Government in denying the Post and Telegraph Association the right to affiliate with the Alliance of La f bour, which was comprised entirely of legally registered trade unions and industrial organisations, the conference considering that the action of the Government was a denial of the elementary right of industrial combination.