UNEMPLOYMENT.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 470, 31 March 1909, Page 10

UNEMPLOYMENT.

HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM. "CAPTURE ALL POLITICAL POWER." "A Parliamentarian's View of tho Unemployed' Question" was tho title of an interesting address which Mr. J. Losina, ILL.A., of Queensland, delivered at tho corner of Cuha Street and Dixon Street last night, beforo a fairly numerous crowd. Tho speaker at the outset referred to tho birth of tho Labour movement in Australasia. In Australia it was cradled in' strifo; in New Zealand several beneficent laws had been obtained by peaceful means. After tho great industrial struggles in 1893, thero were, in tho various State Parliaments in Australia, only 35 Labour members; to-day thero wero no fewer than 179. Tho workers of New Zealand could only boast one Labour member—and tho population of tho Dominion was nearly a million. Ho hoped that they felt correspondingly proud of the fact. Tho aim of tho Labour movement was, first of all, to capture—ho used tho word advisedly—political'power. Why should tho workers.not mako laws for themselves? By workers ho did not mean only manual workers, but everybody who followed some useful avocation. In Victoria, 24 members out of 72 wero Labour members, whilst in New South Wales from 30 to 40 but of from 80 to 90 wero returned by tho workers. Then again, in tho Federal House, ( tlie Labour party was practically in control of tho whole of tho Government. If anybody had prophesied such, a thing 20 years ago ho would have been called a lunatic. Socialism was tho same in every part of the world; time and distance mado no difference in connection with the movement. Hero in New Zealand thero was such a multiplicity of Labour laws that it was hard to say whether any ono man really understood, thein. Somo provisions destroyed tho effect of the others —nono 'wont far enough. What ho would like to make clear to tho workers was that an injury to one of them was an injury to all. Tlio bricklayers who recently wont from New Zealand to Queensland would benefit themselves, but their action might hurt a number of workers there.. If the Government of such a fino country as New Zealand could not solvo the problem of unemployment, it was a mean sort of thing to shovo it on to its neighbours. How was it thero should bo any unemployment at all? It was because tbo people did not own tho means of production, distribution, and exchange. During the course of further remarks, Mr. Losina pointed out that the Socialists did not wish' to bring about tho realisation of thoir objectivo by a sudden upheaval of society. If tho masses doomed that thoir aims should bo achieved in that manner, then all they could say was that the majority had a right to rule. Nobody would like to go back to tho dark days when it was held that tho great public services should ho in tho hands of the capitalists. Stato ownership, if badly administered, was just as bad as privato enterprise in its worst form. Socialists did not regard the extension of tho principle of Stato or municipal ownership as a solution of tho difficulty. Their .contention was th»t tho wages system was a wrong thing. M«o should not have to seek employment at tho hands of other men. If tho objective of the Socialist party wero achieved, there need bo no unemployment. So long as all tho land and tho machinery of production remained in tho hands of a few people, so long would the present 'highly unsatisfactory state of things exist. In conclusion, Mr. Losina, who spoke for about an hour and a half, mado a strong appeal to tho workers to organise so that they might be ablo to capture all political power.