The Issue for the Citizens.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 15860, 27 March 1917, Page 6

The Issue for the Citizens.

There is more than one point of rescmblanco between the tactics of tho "Labour Representation Commiviee"' in the local election campaign and the tactics of the P.L.L. and I.W.W. combination in the New South Wales Parliamentary elections. In New South Wales tho P.L.L. and' I.W.W. fought the election as opponents of compulsory military service, although that is an issue altogether outside State polities. In Christchurch tho "Labour liepresentation Committee," which is an assemblage of the people opposed to the war, qpposcd to national service, or opposed to tho causo of Great Britain and her Allies, have put in the forefront of their programme, "The immediate repeal of the Military Service Act," although that is an issue with which local government has nothing directly to do. Nothing directly, we say, for there is this indirect connexion between national service and local politics, that the people are likely to get better local government from loyal meii whose devotion to national service and to the causo of tho Allies is beyond doubt, than from men who have been conspicuous in their hatred of tho national spirit aroused by tho war. If these people were to succeed in securing the control of tho City Council and tho Mayoralty, tho position of New Zealand would not b© altered. Tho Act would remain in force, the country would remain true to its duty; only Christchuroh would bo plunged in discredit. But thero would be certain grave disadvantages all the same. In the first place, we should have the city sadly misgoverned. How could we expect good management from fanatics who have never shown any capacity for sound and businesslike administration, who do not (to do them justice) even pretend that they know anything of sound administration, and who, as a matter of fact, are seeking to dominate the Council mainly in order to occupy their time with matters foreign to tho actual business of tho city? In the second place, wo should see the City Council busily engaged in putting into practice a form of one of tho I.W.W.'s methods, namely, throwing sand into the national machine.

Tho "Labour Representation Committee" will bo certain to have every one of their supporters enrolled, and to see that they get to the poll. They will rely upon'the bulk of the wageearners voting for them, but in this we arc confident that they are making a mistake. The Red. Fed. bosses have done their best to make the workingman seem to be a disloyal fellow, and they have terrorist methods effective enough to deter any workingman from lifting up a voice for loyalty insido the halls of labour. But they have not killed the loyalty of the worker: they havo only silenced it or shouted it down. It will, reveal itself, we are convinced, at the poll, now that Red Fedism has come forth with a direct challenge to loyalty. The present "bosses" of the Labour movement in this country are in nothing more -unrepresentative of the workingman than in their disloyalty and their hostility to national service and the Empire's cause. They are the spiritual com-' rades of the men of the P.L.L. and I.W.W. in .New South Wales, and the worst enemies of tho loyal men in the ranks of Labour. "We are confident that a majority of the people of this city havo rejoiced at the defeat of tho anti-compulsion party in New South Wales, and that they will meto out the same treatment to tho intriguers here who are seeking to control tho city's government on a basis of enmity to the Military Service Act, which, we need hardly say, is a disguise for enmity to loyalty and enmity to the cause of tho 'Allies. The only danger is that through failure' to realise what is at issue many people will fail to enrol. Today is the last day for enrolment, and every loyalist who omits to enrol is practically giving a vote to tho disloyalist party.