The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY. APRIL 19, 1927. LABOURS LEFT WING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 91, 19 April 1927, Page 6

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

TUESDAY. APRIL 19, 1927. LABOURS LEFT WING.

For the cause that lacks assistant*, For the trrong that needs resist tmm, For the future in the distanoe. And the good that toe can do.

Judging from indications supplied by the oonU'rence of the Independent Labour party no'.v in session at Leicester, the extremists have practically secured control of the party "machine." The newly-elected pre.-ident is Mr. ,1. Maxton. a Glasgow Labourite, who has alreaily made himself notorious for his sympathies with Bolshevism and Communism, and his strongly declared afiinity ior all nations and countries but his own. Even more Mcniricant is tlie n irttia 1 oxpul.-iyii of Mr. Kamsay Mac Donald from office. Xot only as one of the leunders of the party, but as the i'.r-t Labour Premier and the recognised leader of Labour in Parliament. Mr. Mac Donald has str'm£ claims on the consideration of the 1.L.1'. But the majority of the executive have retu-ed to accept his nomination as treasurer, and his supporters have been unable to reverse this doci?ion.

"V\ lint sort <">1 leading the I.L.P. mav cxpect to get from Mr. Maxton is indicated clearlv cnoiiLrh hv his presidential address. Tlic "unparalleled brutality" of the "rulinsr <dasse>" toward the workers \v;i> one of his themes, and Mr. Maxton conveyed to the world at larire a very definite warning that the bitterness thus engendered "may well rind expression in a direct form." This frank incentive to "direct action" i< very naturally ccupled with cordial and fraternal reierences to India, China, and Russia as the allies of the British worker in the "class war," co-operating with him in his determination, under the guidance of Mr. Maxton, "to rebuild the world." After this, the references to '•JftO.ftoO shock troops, all of them tighter* and rebels." sounds rather trite and tame; but the threat to demand a 20 per cent increase in wng-es all round suggests that Mr. Maxton at least pos~,->se- some constructive imagination. It is indeed unfortunate that at this very critical juncture 111 the history of the Labour movement any section of the workers of Britain should commit themselves to such guidance as this. But undoubtedly the revival of Communist influence in Labour circles just now is chiefly due to the widespread resentment evoked by the menacing tone of Mr. Baldwin's Trades Union Bill. It is very likely that, as the president of the Trade Union Congress has just told the I.L.P. Conference, no amendment that the Conservatives might suggest would render the Trades Union Bill acceptable to the workers; and it was a political blunder of the fii>t magnitude for a Conservative Government to introduce such a measure at such a time.