LABOUR POLICY.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18140, 1 August 1924, Page 8

LABOUR POLICY.

EFFECT IN NEW ZEALAND. HON. W. DOWNIE STEWART'S advice. :• s (SPECIAL TO ''THE PE23S. ") B WELLINGTON. July 31.» Some homely advice was tendered to tho New Zealand Labour Party by tho Hon W Downio Stewart in the House of Representatives tonight to follow in the stens of their colleagues m "Britain and throw over their ideas regarding class warfare. When'replying to the criticism, of the Budaat lie said that he took a Keen interest in tho Labour policy. their party and their platform. Inferring to a remark by the Labour member for Auckland that ho (tho sneaker) since becoming a Cabinet, MiniS hid not entertained the Ho."* with interesting speeches as ho aiu before, he said .a Rood deal of h.suiue | was now occupied in dealing with de- • tails of administration that might not | bo of ©articular interest to the honorable member, but were necessary when the administration was criticised. "I was struck, however," he said, t» the honourable member's remarks regarding the distribution of wealth last evening "While he was speaking A had in mv desk a book byHerr Buthennu, the late German Chancellor, who, though an adviser to the Kaiser, was regarded as one of the foremost Social-; ists. the first exponent since lvarl. Mr Stewart quoted from Rathenau's "The New Society": "All the intellectual work has to be done outside the ranks of Social-Democracy, winch stumbles along on its two crutches ot socialisation and Soviets Orthodox Socialism is still a caso of the lesser evil; what the French call a 'pisaller.' Tilings are bo bad that any change must be for the better. What is to make them better wo are told in tho Socialist Catechism, but how it is to do so—tho only question that matters —is regarded .is irrelevant. It is answered by some halting and insincere stammer about surplus value, which is to make everybody well off, and which would yield all round just twenty-five marks a head. Fifteen million grown men are pressing forward into a promised land revealed through the fog of political assemblies, and in the thunder of parrot-phrases; a, land from which no one will ever bring bade ai bunch of grapes; a land where there will be no more rich —there will be only poor, only very poor, people. Whoever does not know this, and is a Socialist, that man. is merely one of the herd, or he is a dupe. He who knows it and conceals it is a deceiver. He who knows it and jn spite of tbat t> nay, on account of that, is a Socialist is a man of tho future." Mr Lee: He was not a Socialist.

Mr Stewart:. He was a philosophical Anarchist. (Laughter.) I think, however, I can see changes coming in Labour's thought and mind which are perhaps more obvious to an observer than to themselves. I do not hear now quite the ejime note as I heard a year or two ago. The Leader of the Labour Party and other members, when they first came into the House, preached very openly the doctrines of class war.