AUSTRALIAN LABOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 101, 1 May 1930, Page 22

AUSTRALIAN LABOUR.

N.S.W. CONFERENCE. STORMY PACTION FIGHTS. "OUTING" AN ORGANISER. (By the "Star's" Suecial Representative.) SYDNEY, April 24. However does the Labour party sometimes manage to pull itself together and achieve victory at the polls? That is the first question that springs to the mind after witnessing a Labour conference —or at least such a conference as that now being conducted in Sydney. For this 1930 Easter assembly of the representatives of Labour, 160 strong, and comprising delegates from almost every union and from branches of the A.L.P. throughout the State, opened with a bitter faction fight and continued in an atmosphere of brawling and disruption, in which certain gentlemen addressed each other as liars, curs, mongrels, cowards, traitors and "twisters." The entertainment was occasionally brightened by stand-up fights between their supporters, who crowded the "gallery" of the Trades Hall and cheered or booed as the humour seized them. Before proceeding to the important business set down on the agenda paper

delegates decided to consider the case of A. J. MacPherson, organising secretary of the, A.L.P. The stage was set for the encounter; it was known to be a faction fight, in which the redoubtable Jock Garden, secretary of the Trades Hall and leader of the "Red" elements of the Labour movement, was out for the head of MacPherson, who had been foolish enough to "speak out of his turn" against J. A. Lang, leader of the State Parliamentary Labour party and the Opposition, and formerly Premier. Judging by the horror expressed by MacPherson's accusers, his crime was akin to patricide, and Lang was something more sacrosanct than even the Kaiser in the seventh heaven of his meglomania. High treason wasn't in it with the awful offence of whispering wrong concerning Lang.

MacPherson's real offence was that he had dared to criticise the actions of Lang, and even gone so far as to say that the Labour party would not win the forthcoming elections with "that big in Macquarie Street as leader." Now, had "Mac" gone tbout the country in his capacity as organiser and expressed these sentiments, his conduct might have been open to condemnation as seditious, traitorous, or whatever other name the staunch loyalists of the party liked to give it. But "Mac" didn't. All he did was to express his private convictions to certain members of the A.L.P. executive—and those members promptly "potted" him, and a special meeting of the executive decided to suspend him from office, the member most emphatically condemnatory being Jock Garden, who has suddenly (and peculiarly) s\frung hinlself on to the side of Lang and the Parliamentarians—this same Garden who was a declared direct actionist and revolutionist and sworn enemy of those who would waste time tinkering with the slow processes of legislation and political evolution. MacPherson was clearly in for it. Garden very shrewdly gauged the way it would go. "Lang will be there," he said, discussing what was to come with a delegate, "and he will create the psychology. That will be the end of Mac."

But "Mac" didn't go down without a fight—of a kind. He admitted having criticised Lang, and held that he had a right to criticise the leaders of the movement, but he said that he was loyally behind Lang when it came to fighting the common enemy—and much to the same effect. As to his enemies, they were after his head and he knew it. He assailed Garden with all the epithets at his command, and Garden's supporters came in for their share of vitriolic abuse, too; but they lacked nothing in vigour of response, and among the most plainlvspoken of all were "the ladies, God bless 'em!" The Amazons had nothing on them. MacPherson was as vigorously defended as he was assailed, if language counts, but his adherents were outnumbered, and tlw organiser was deposed, amid the shrieking and hooting of the gallery, followed by free fights, which extended out into the street. So was Caesar Lan<* avenged! ° But this was imerely personal. There is another split in the ranks of Labour that is very much more serious. Doubtless some of your readers remember the ballot-box scandal some three years ago, when certain ballot boxes in a preelection ballot were found to have sliding bottoms, very cunningly devised. As a result of that the Australian Workers' Union and the Australian Labour party parted company. Now the A.W.U. is the most .powerful and wealthy union in Australia, and its severance has been very keenly felt by the A.L.P. The A.W.U. has a membership of 42,000 votes, and a large proportion of these votes swung against candidates selected to contest an election by the A.L.P. means disaster to those candidates, which no doubt accounted for several defeats in rural constituencies in 1927. And the "Worker/' the official organ of the A.W.U., is read by all members. Its criticisms of the A.L.P., the Lang faction and the Parliamentary party in general has been such as to cause the gravest embarrassment and cause those concerned perpetually to wonder 1 what stone was to hit them next. The A.W.U. matter came before the A.L.P. conference on a motion that the powerful union be readmitted to affiliation as though it were a new organisation, paying fees only from the time of joining. This was at once fiercely disputed. The A.W.U. could come back

into the fold, but let it pay its affiliation fees for the past three years, amounting to thousands of pounds. It was the wealthiest of all unions—why should it escape paying its just dues? Why go on their knees to the A.W.U. ? It had sought to obtain mastery of the "machine," and when it failed it had turned traitor; like a bad child when whipped it had sought to do all the harm possible to the Labour movement, "But," sa,id one of the saner speakers, "remember this: Labour only achieves office at the best of times by a narrow majority. If you have the 42,000 members of the A.W.U. still antagonised at the next elections you won't have a ghost of a chance of defeating the Bavin Government, however much that Government may be in bad odour at present." There were others who spoke in the same strain, and who urged that unity must be regained at all costs. But the majority of the speakers were hostile ancl exceedingly bitter. Why should they strew the pathway with flowers for the A.W.U. to return? Had not the A.W.U. strewn its destructive thorns in tlio pathway of Labour ever since the quarrel? The A.W.U. and the "Worker" I had "deliberately sabotaged" the Labour movement during the last elections, especially in the rural districts, and had, more than any other factor, been responsible for putting Mr. Lang out of office.

And this was the decision of the conference, on a vote of 87 to C. Next day, however, Jock Garden, who is becoming exceedingly active in politics since lie has failed so signally as a strike dictator, succeeded in having a resolution carried to appoint a committee to negotiate further with the A.W.U. regarding the terms of reaffiliation with the A.L.P. Jock apparently sees danger in the continuance of the cleavage, and also sees kudos for himself if ho can succeed in bringing about a reconciliation. A knowing fellow is this same Jock Garden!