LABOUR DAILY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 120, 24 May 1939, Page 16

LABOUR DAILY.

AUSTRALIAN FAILURE.

BANK PUTS IN RECEIVER.

A CHEQUERED HISTORY.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 18. On May 12, when the directors of the "Daily Xews," formerly the "Labour Daily," notified its chief creditor, the Bank of Xew South Wales, that no funds'were available to carry on, and the bank installed a receiver, another chapter in the chequered career of this paper closed. Mr. W. E. Armstrong, the receiver appointed, has announced that when he has investigated the position of the company he will call for tenders for its purchase.

It has never been revealed how much the unions have poured into the paper during its hectic 15 years, but some idea of what the "Labour Daily" has cost its supporters may be obtained from the fact that after finding the £23.000 with which to pay off Mr. Lang, it has been announced Miners' Federation still has first call with a loan of £0250, followed by the Hank of Xew South Wales £2.5,000, Miners' Federation (caveat) £7500, bank £27,000, trades' union debentures £10,800, and other undisclosed creditors.

Backed by Trades Unions. The "Labour Daily" began in 1824, when a number of trades unions, the Miners' Federation contributing most, |>ut up enough money to buy the bankrupt 'Daily Mail." The new Labour newspaper found the going very heavy and in *10"2fl, when it was already in financial difficulties, Mr. Lang came to its assistance with a loan of over £6000. For more than a year (1929-30) it was the solitary voice on behalf of the miners in the great lock-out which lasted more than 12 months. Naturally, the 12 month*' (struggle hit the Miners' Federation financially very hard and also hit the "Labour Daily."' In 1931, when the bank demanded the reduction of its overdraft the paper again felt the shadow of possible liquidation, and Mr. Lang again came to its rescue with another £7000.

Mr. Lang's Receiver. The paper managed to carry on without any further serious difficulty until thf feud between the Lang anil antil.iing factions moved out into the o]>en with the public formation of the rival Hellion Labour party, composed of the industrial wing of the movement. At the end of January, n>3B, Mr. Lang, acting under the powers conferred on him under the debenture* which he held for hk substantial* loans, installed as receiver the editor whom ho had put in charge of the "Labour Daily," a former "Sydney Morning Herald" reporter named Mr. Norman McCauley. Litigation had been proceeding in the Equity Court over disputed results of the 1937 election of directors of the paper, from which the Heflron party emerged with their candidates declared by the Court tlie legal directors of the pa|>er. After extraordinary efforts the new control succeeded in raising over £23.000, with which they completely satisfied Mr. Lang's claims. The ' total comprised £17.MfKI in principal and interest on his two debentures, £5300 in full settlement of all expenses incurred by Mr. McCauley as liquidator, and £50 as legal e.\|KMises. The new directors soon struck trouble.

An Evening Rival. The old bosses of the Australian Workers' Union were also the directors of Labour Papers, Limited, a company formed principally by the A.W.U. with an ambitious programme for the establishment of a chain of Labour newspa per*. Two were established, one in Hobart and one which lasted for a good many years in Brisbane, but neither survived. In October, 1931. these A.W.U. chiefs launched an evening paper in Sydney known a* "The World." whose avowed purpose was to defeat Mr. Lang in the 1932 elections. This purpose it achieved and then died, having lost £70.000 of Trade Union funds during its 12 months' existence.

This fierce warfare all through 1932 between the "Labour Daily , ' and "Th«; World" naturally did not help either of them, but the HeflYon party, when at long last it succeeded in ousting Mr. Lang from control of the "Labour Daily' , in February. 193 ft. announced grandiloquent plans for the enlargement of the paper. Last December they changed its name to the "Daily News"—a move which many Labour sympathisers have always regarded as a bad mistake—and engaged several newspaper men at very high salaries from other papers, discarding a lot of Mr. Lang's stalwarts. Since then, however, the decline of the paper has assumed the proportions of a landslide. The rank and file of the Labour I'novement. apparently completely disgusted, have withdrawn their support and turned more and more to the new "Daily Telegraph." which has been outspokenly anti-Fascist and generally Liberal and Left in its attitude.

Tt is just possible that Mr. Armstrong will find his only purchaser for the moribund concern in Mr. Lang, and the paper will again take its part in th? breezy Labour politics of New South Wales.