The Dominion. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1912. LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1423, 25 April 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1912. LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA.

The Queensland general election, which is to be held on Saturday next, is of unusual interest and importance, since it will determine whether ■Queensland favours or disapproves the entrusting bS the government of the State to organised labour. Incidentally, the result of the election will have a continent-wide significance: the defeat of the Labour party, following the defeat of Labour in South Australia, and preceding whatmay be regarded as the almost certain defeat of the Labour Government in New South Wales, and the possible defeat of the Federal Labour Government, will mean that Australia has got back to sobriety. Unless all the signs are misleading, the Denhaje Government will be returned to power with a good majority. The dominant issue of the election is, of course, the recent strike, and it is significant of the anxiety of the Labour leaders, who are realising how widely they opened the Queensland public's eyes, that some of their organs are complaining because Mr. Denhaji has "rushed before the electors with an industrial dispute as the dominant issue." Bait it was organised Labour that forced that issue. Believing that the Queensland public could be beaten to its knees by a general transport strike, the Labour loaders struck with all their strength. By threats and persuasion they led a groat section of the workers to believe that success at the expense of the public welfare was not only a feasible, but quite an ( easy Ihing. They hadthe assistance of the Labour Opposition in Parliament, one of the members of which was the actual leader of the strike. They pulled the Federal strings, and obtained from Mit.. Fishek, the Federal Prime Minister, a contribution to the strike fund, and, subsequently, a scandalous refusal to tyrant the ri'f|ii('st of tin- Governor of Queensland for assistance in maintaining order—a request which Iliu Constitution required him to grant. Tt is entirely the fault of the Labour leaders that the poll on Saturday is, as the Brisbane. Mail dechrss. to «MJn '.-"whether the functions of the ExscU',

tive Government shall be usurped by a Strike. Committee, on which members of the Assembly Opposition take a prominent and audacious part." While, the Labour party is bitterly repenting its whole conduct of the aiiiur— and especially its dictation to private citizens, in the early and hopeful stage of the strike, of , the terms upon which they might exist—the Pi'emier and his supporters have been inculcating very usc"Fiilly the real lesson to be learned by tin: Queensland public. In a speech at Yeronga Mr. Dexiiam pointed out that the bedrock fact of the strike •was the bamboozling of the workers by tlio official leaders of Labour. ''Now, if ever/' he said, "was the time_ when working men should sec the importance, of taking an active and intelligent interest in politics and in- the class of men they chose for their leaders." There are thousands of people in Queensland amongst the worker class who should show that they have learned the iesson. The fight, so far as Queensland is concerned, is a plain "fight to a finish" between Labour demagogy and the general public. But there is involved in the contest a far wider interest than a mere Stats interest, as the democratic Melbourne At/c poiuts out. Taking as its text the unashamed championship of Labour tyranny, that was the object of Mr. Fisher's special visit to Brisbane last week, the Ar/c drew a contrast between the behaviour of Mr. Fisher the strike-abettor, the contributor to the strike fund, the champion of the rowdies who were to beat Brisbane into submission, the advocate of the strike, with Mr. Fisher the statesman who promulgates and passes anti-strike legislation. *It goes on to ask some questions that more and' more people, iii New Zealand as in the rest of Australasia, are beginning to ask themselves with every day that passes. It is "very difficult indeed," it says, "to comprehend the goal towards which Labour is presumably striving":

Does Labour officialdom pin any sort of real faith to arbitration? In Parliament it affects to regard arbitration as the supreme industrial cure-all. It speaks decidedly and with tremendous vigour. But that is only in Parliament. National Labour leaders, as private citizens, forward generous contributions to strike funds. As demagogues, again, they take the stump and praise the strikers for making war upon society and refusing to obey the country's laws. What does all this contrariety of<counsel and confusion of advice portend? Has Labour no fixed goal at all? Is it merely drifting it knows not where, and ore Labour leaders nought but creatures of the current, ambitious only of place and pay?

The election of Saturday cannot be expected to throw much real light upon these questions, but it may in some measure indicate Queensland opinion upon the syndicalist doctrine from which all tho Australasian Labour parties draw their practical principles. Syndicalism— the dominance of-the demagogue v over the community—has had a fairly prosperous innings in Australasia, and Australasia is due to proclaim itself tired of the use of the general body of wage-earners by self-seeking demagogues for ends which, when they are not merely slyly advantageous to the glib-tongiied "Labour leader," arc sharply disadvantageous to tho nation.