SOCIALISATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 194, 18 August 1931, Page 7

SOCIALISATION.

A BITTER CONFLICT.

Significant Moves in New

South Wales.

BOLD BIDS FOE POWER.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, August 14,

In a measure, the whole of Australia is fighting socialisation in a bitter conflict that, but for the hopeless financial position, would transcend in importance as news the rehabilitation plans now being prospected by tie Premiers of all the States. Socialisation in New South Wales has reached a stage where its protagonists may well congratulate themselves, and evidence is not wanting that a big push by the comparatively small group behind the move is being made, while the attention of their erstwhile antagonists is taken up by the other vital problem. Students of politics in New South Wales foresee the swift and complete socialisation of industry if some counter move is not made at once. At the last Easter conference of the State A.L.P., the Socialisation Committee succeeded in having the three-years' socialisation plan carried at one session. The three-years' plan they advocated was on all fours with the Soviet Five-Year Plan, the workers to take control of industry. Hitherto, the committee had been practically unknown; but their coup roused the small coterie of the A.L.P., known as the inner group, to such activity that the decision was revoked at the next session. Controlling the Government. With representatives on the A.L.P., and with that body controlling the Government of New South Wales, the socialisation group have made some remarkable advances. Their A.L.P. representatives have been so strong as to dominate their confreres. Their demand that members of the Parliamentary caucus should take instructions from the socialisation group was conceded, and is a fact. Refusal meant no endorsement, and no Labour Parliamentarian could risk that. Each Labour member of Parliament is now required to submit a report of socialisation activities twice a year. Last week the Socialisation committee condemned the Lang plan as being "a means of side-tracking the 'revolutionary objective' of the A.L.P." At the eame meeting ifc was decided that nothing short of revolutionary overthrow of the present system of society would be effective. This, from the body controlling the Government of New South Wales. Since that decision, not even the Premier has been game .to mention the Lang plan in public. Bread and Meat. One plank of the Socialisation Plan is to get control of the essential services. How far this has succeeded is also amply demonstrated. The recent dole bread impasse is regarded as a trial of strength, Had the Shadier contract been continued, the Government, which is the mouthpiece of the A.L.P., and therefore of the socialisation group, which has so many converts on the A.L.P. now as to be impregnable, would have had its hand on a monopoly of bread supplies.

The move failed, on the surface, but the socialisation group have expressed satisfaction at the result, since it gave them an insight into the difficulties they would have to face. The latest significant statement in this regard name from .the acting-Premier, Mr. Baddeley, in the State Parliament this week. He admitted, in answer to a question, that the Government, had under consideration the establishment of a State bakery. So much for bread.

The removal of the Meat Board recently, provided the opportunity of nominating men satisfactory to the socialisation group. Mr. Scott, the new president of the Meat Board, has no obvious leanings in that direction; but he is the nominee of the Lang Government. Mr. A. D. Kay, another member,, owes his position purely to Labour patronage. Mr. F. C. Hutt, the employees' representative, is claimed as a straightout socialisation group unit, i Electricity. The same group is reaching out to obtain key positions in the control of the electricity supply. The Bunnerong power station is the mainspring of the city's supply, and in control of that huge undertaking is Mr. Nolan, who has so far resisted the advances of the socialisation group as to incur their open enmity. Charges were brought against him that he had made certain statements derogatory to city aldermen. Three employees maintained that he had made the statements' in their presence. Seven others, who were present at the time, denied that he had made the statements. But a committee, comprised mainly of Labour aldermen, adjudged him guilty, and at a meeting this week of the electricity committee of the City Council, a motion that he be severely censured, and that his salary be reduced by £200 for one year as a punishment, was carried by five votes to four. This in the face of a statement by the general manager of the electricity undertaking, Mr. Forbes Mackay, that Mr. Nolan was a most trustworthy and efficient electrical engineer, and a reliable controller of the power station. The obvious inference is that the Labour aldermen want to discredit Nolan, to make way for their own nominee, and so gain control of that key position. In other avenues, too, their work is becoming more and more apparent. They fostered the Arbitration Bill, which would have given control of the State to union secretaries, and though they failed temporarily in this thrust, they succeeded in gaining the chairmanship of conciliation committees for their nominees. These conciliation committees decide questions of law and disputes between employer and employee. Most of these conciliation chairmen are exunion secretaries themselves. Position Critical. At present, the A.L.P. itself is making somewhat transparent efforts to check the socialisation group, but the group is attempting to have Communists admitted to its membership, and leading Communists make the open boast that they will take the control of the socialisation group out of the hands of the A.L.P. altogether. As the group has given its backing to the Unemployed Workers' Movement, the body which fought evictions of unemployed workers with stones and iron bars, it is already half Communist. The position has become so critical that all political attention is rivetted upon it just now, and it is difficult to forecast the outcome.