The Dominion THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1921. LABOUR PROFESSIONS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 248, 14 July 1921, Page 4

The Dominion THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1921. LABOUR PROFESSIONS

0 Iff it lived up to such professions as were made on its behalf yesterday by its retiring president (MR- i J . Eraser, M.P.), the New Zealand Labour Party, as it calls itself, might take a more important part in the political life of the Dominion than it has been able or fit to take in its post career. The speech with which Mr. Fraser opened tho party’s annual conference contained Bomo observations most notably at variance with the past record and performance of its leading members. He said, for instance, that “the Labour Party stood against the methods of force and violence for the achievement of its object,” and that it “adhered wholly and entirely to legal and constf.tutional methods of political action, including the contesting of Parliamentary, municipal, and local body elections. . . - In New Zealand, it was only possible to bring about Labour's desired end by peaceful methods.” These remarks suggest that in this country "Bolshevism is at a discount inside as well as outside the Labour Party —much more at a discount so far as Labour politicians are concerned than it was only ten weeks ago when Mr. Fraser himself proposed a resolution in which a “May Day” gathering of Labour adherents affirmed “its faith in the international solidarity of Labour,” expressed “its satisfaction at the brighter prospects in front of the workers’ Republic of Russia, and the progress of Socialism everywhere,” and sent “fraternal greetings to the workers of all countries, creeds, and colours.” Approval of the blood-stained Communist tyranny in Russia is so far from baling compatible with a desire to forward peaceful progress in this country “by legal and constitutional methods of political action” that many people will doubt whether the professions Mr. Fraser made on behalf of the Labouff Party yesterday hold any value or meaning. The Labour Party, like any other party, is to be judged less by what it says than by what it does. If it has really undergone the change of heart implied in the speech of its retiring president, proof of the fact will be afforded in an amendment of its policy and tactics. If, on the other hand, talk about legal, constitutional, and peaceful methods is intended merely to cloak further designs of stirring up profitless strife and trouble in the community, the party will not long hide its true aims and tendencies by smooth professions of virtue.

Assuming for the sake of argument that, the Labour Party, socalled, is really intent on turning over a new leaf, there are obvious ways in which it may afford the necessary proofs of sincerity. In order to make a beginning it must jettison the, imaginative and quite erroneous theory that the workers of this country are down-trodden “wage-slaves.” This queer idea is only prevented from lapsing into oblivion because Labour spokesmen have fallen into the habit of parroting catch-cries evolved in other less favoured countries instead of getting into touch with the actual conditions of life and industry in the Dominion. The truth upon which any Labour party entitled to the name must take its stand in this country is that th’e only serious obstacles to industrial and social progress by which the whole community has everything to gain are raised by those who stir up artificial strife between one section of the people and another. If the Labour Party has any real desire to forward peaceful and constructive progress, it may do a great deal, to that end by setting its face implacably against the strikes and disturbances of. industry which many of its leading members have hitherto been active in fomenting, often on the most trivial pretexts. It. would even better assist progress and promote the well-being of the community by fairly facing the fact that general prosperity, and most of all that of wage-earners and their families, is undermined by the slackening of industrial effort for which Labour extremists are mainly responsible. The merits of this question are easily appreciated in these days of diminished prosperity. The one great obstacle to economic recovery is the difficulty of producing goods and providing services at such cost as will permit them to find a market, and obviously these conditions will never be remedied under the policy of hoisting wages and limiting effort and output. The Labour Party would worthily live up to the professions made on its behalf yesterday if it had the courage io proclaim that the people of the Dominion, and particularly its wage-earners, have everything to hope and gain from a policy of sustained and well-directed effort, and that their worst enemies are those who endeavour to promote industrial strife and class antagonisms which in this country rest on a purely imaginary basis.