NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 174, 11 April 1923, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

An interesting commentary on Labour’s recent utterances regarding immigration to New Zealand is furnished by an interview Mr. Julian Grande,- the Continental lecturer, had. with Mr. H. Hi. Holland, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, while on the West Coast. Mr. Grande stated that, in his interview with the Labour Leader, Mr. Holland said his party was not opposed to immigration, but that New Zealand could do with two million more people. It is not very many weeks since Mr. Walter Nash, secretary of the Labour Party, wrote to Mr. Arthur Henderson, one of the leaders of the Labour Party in England, warning immigrants against coming to New Zealand.

One of yesterday’s cablegrams appears to take it for granted that Mr. Harding will be renominated by the Republican Party for a second term as President of the United States. This is in keeping with the opinion expressed by a majority of the American newspapers which have recently discussed the prospects of the Presidential campaign next year. Even Republican newspapers, however are not unanimous in predicting that Mr. Harding will bo re-elected The Republican Boston Transcript declared bluntly that his chances of renomination were better than those for his re-clection, and another Republican paper observed that within the Republican Party there were millions of voters who did not like the type of leadership which Mr. Harding personified. Asking why Mr. Harding should not be renominated, the New York World remarked that he had scrupulously kept faith and represented a theory of government that the American people were induced to accept in 1920, and on which there should be a referendum in 1924. “Whatever faults the President may have,” the World added, “he is the Republican Party’s last word on the most desirable method of carrying on a government of enumerated powers under a system of checks and balances. He has functioned according to the law of the party that made him President.” On the whole newspaper discussion suggests that although Mr. Harding is almost certain to be nominated by his party for another term his re-election is not by any means taken for granted. The doubt thus implied is no doubt strengthened by the memory of the serious setback suffered by the Republicans at the Congressional elections last year.

The extreme Labour candidate for the Mayoralty (Mr. Fraser) is hardly to be congratulated on the line of appeal he adopted in opening his campaign. He repeated the familiar assertion that his party aims at serving the interests of the working people. On ex—amination, however, the municipal policy ho advoiates resolves itself into one of favouring a few of the workers at the expense of the rest. He proposes, for instance, to give the. city tramway employees special representation on the Tramways Committee—the body by which the City Council is largely guided in its tramways policy." As municipal electors, the tramwayracn already enjoy the same measure of representation on the Tramways Committee as other electors, including their fellow-workers in other occupations. Mr. Fraser is in favour of giving them additional direct representation on the committee, and thus placing them in a position at least to influence decisions affecting their own wages and working conditions. Under tho methods advocated by Mr. Fraser and his political associates, the cost of any special privilege the tramwaymen might secure in this way would not bo passed on in increased fares, but would be met by increasing the city rates. The idea no doubt is to suggest that the burden would fall only on the well-to-do. Presumably, however, very few wageearners in the city are unaware that they all pay rates, directly oi indirectly, us an item in rent. With that simple fact in mind, anyone may perceive that what Mr. Fraser is proposing is to confer special privileges on the tramwaymen at the expense of all tho rest of the workers resident in the city. This is thoroughly typical or me extreme Labour conception of serving the interests of the working people.