SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1929. THE PROSPECTS OF LABOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 8

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1929. THE PROSPECTS OF LABOUR.

The Labour Party has now virtually assumed office, and the whole Empire will watch with keen interest the initial steps to bo taken by Mr. Mac Donald and his colleagues to carry into effect their declared policy at home and abroad. That policy is set forth officially in a programme entitled "Labour and the Nation" which was circulated last year; and it is well to remember that when it first appeared it was assailed by many leading Labourites as vague, visionary and unsatisfying. The political secretary of the 1.L.P., Mr. G. Young, Mr. H. N. Brailsford, and other influential spokesmen in the cause of Labour criticised the programme as a series of "altruistic truisms" and "bravo generalities," and complained bitterly of "tho absence of any organising idea" and the chaos of "partisan polemics" by which the main issues wore obscured. Evidently whatever Mr. Mac Donald and Mr. A. Henderson, who were its chief authors, think about their it has not appealed to the sympathies of the I.L.P.

The reason for this cold welooino accorded to the official statement of policy by a large section of the Labourites, is, of course, that the party is divided into two mutually hostile camps. The moderates, headed by Rarnsay MacDonahl and Arthur Henderson, are honestly anxious to secure social and economic reforms by peaceful and constitutional means. But the extremists, represented by the "left wingers" of the 1.L.P., cling to the tenets of Marxism. Though Mac Donald and Snowden have formally repudiated the "class war" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat," they have not carried all their followers with them. But in such a conflict the extremists often win. Dr. Haden Guest, who withdrew from the Labour Party last year because of the license permitted to "left wingers" and Communists, has said that "in a struggle for power on vital issues inside the Labour Party it is the revolutionary Left which wins and the moderate Right which gives way." And unfortunately Mr. Mac Donald, Avith great intellectual ability and many fine personal qualities', docs not seem to possess the courage and endurance needed to hold his own against the persistent efforts of the extremists.

In his recent interesting criticism of the Labour movement Dr. Guest has pointed out that the tendency of the Labour moderates to yield to the extremists has been already illustrated in a very striking way. Mr. Mac Donald is too intelligent a man to pin his faith on "direct action" and a violent revolution, and Mr. Snowden is too good a financier to believe in lavish extravagance in the use of public funds. Yet, says Dr. Guest, "Mr. Mac Donald has been compelled to support Bolshevik policy at home and abroad in the past, and Mr. Philip Snowden has been compelled to support pauperisation plus reckless finance in the past"; and ho adds, ominously enough, "they will have to do so again in the future." It is all very well for defenders of Labour to say "look how moderate Mr. Mac Donald and Mr. Snowden are." Dr. Guest asserts that "when the time for decision comes, the moderate man does not count, and Mr. Lansbury becomes more important than Mr. Mac Donald or Mr. Snowden." Early this year Dr. Guest, after an intimate personal association with Labour and its leaders, declared that "if a Labour Government were formed irr this country in the next few months, it would inevitably be pushed more and more to the Left." Is this to be the final destiny of the Mac Donald Government?

IMPROVEMENTS AT ROTORUA.

It was fitting that the Government's plans for the improvement of Rotorua should bo outlined at Rotorua by Sir Joseph Ward. The Tourist Department was created by Sir Joseph Ward, and in the development of our tourist resorts he has always taken a particular interest. As a business man he kaows the value of a unique district like Rotorua, and the late Government's neglect of Rotorua must strike him as stupid. Lately there has been sharp comment on the condition of bath buildings, and it is agreed that much requires to be done to bring this priceless -national asset up to date. Sir Joseph outlined a comprehensive programme of improvements, which includes more money for roading in the district. No one knows better than he what Rotorua means to the oversea tourist traffic, but quite properly he also emphasises its value to the ailing in our own country, including wage-earners set aside temporarily.

A NEW POLITICAL GOSPEL.

"Fascism is not to be criticised except by Fascists, and the Duce by no one." This is the dictum pronounced by one of the leading Fascist organs engaged in rebuking the Pope for venturing to oppose Mussolini. It may seem almost incredible that such obscurantist ideas should find place in the political creed of any civilised country to-day f The Italians ought surely to have learned from their own annals that no power on earth can repress freedom of thought or stifle man's passionate longing for liberty. The motherland of Silvio Pellico and Aurelio Saffi and Mazzini and Garibaldi should be the last of all countries to accept or tolerate this barbarous and obsolete conception of government. As for the Duce himself, who is now elevated by his followers beyond the. range even of criticism, the portrait drawn by his admirers suggests the ancient demigods and heroes, those "magnified non-natural men' , of whom mycologists tell us rather than the ruler of a great and civilised people. When will the Italians, like "the great and puissant nation" of Milton's vision, awaken themselves "as a strong man rousing himself after sleep" and