The Dominion SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1926. GETTING INTO SHEEP’S CLOTHING

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 166, 10 April 1926, Page 8

The Dominion SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1926. GETTING INTO SHEEP’S CLOTHING

During the last few days the New Zealand Labour Party has been holding its annual conference at Wanganui. The public has been permitted to know very little about the business transacted. There have been one or two interesting, indications of the way the thoughts of the leaders of the party are tending, but these at best are calculated rather to whet than to satisfy curiosity.

On the whole, the meagre reports of the conference that are available suggest a desire on the part of the Labour-Socialists to tone down the bad impression made by their past extravagance of attitude and policy. Their resolution relating to defence, for instance, contains nothing to which any party need take positive exception. It is too vaguely worded to be a satisfactory statement of policy, but it is novel as coming from those by whom the most necessary measures of defence have so often been vehemently denounced and assailed.

It was to be expected that the Labour-Socialist conference this year would deal with some important questions of policy. Amongst other things, there will be a general desire to know what has been done with the notorious “usehold.” As yet silence is maintained on this subject, though it has been announced that a permanent committee has been set up to consider means whereby farmers and Labour may be brought closer' together. This committee at best has a difficult row to hoe. Unless it is able to intimate that the “usehold” policy lias been dropped it will hardly obtain even an initial hearing from the farmers it is instructed to'woo. It is possibly because their eyes are fixed on thd Eden by-election that the Labour-Socialists are observing such studied reticence with regard to the “usehold” and other matters. In the northern contest, the quaint idea has been put forward by the Labour-Socialist candidate (Mr. Mason) and his party backers that: “The issue is not what is the policy of Labour.” The electors of Eden are invited to support Mr. Mason in order to strengthen what he and his friends describe as an independent Opposition. The theory submitted apparently is that the policy for which an Opposition stands does not matter, so long as it is prqpared to be industrious in faultfinding.

However convenient its adoption might be to the extreme Labour Party, this notion will not commend itself to level-headed electors in any part of the Dominion. Keeping their own policy obscurely in the background, and appealing for support as a merely negative Opposition, the Labour-Socialists are in effect, declaring themselves politically bankrupt. The futility of this attitude has already been sufficiently illustrated in the Eden campaign. The cry of Mr. Mason and his friends is “strengthen the Opposition,” but instead of offering reasoned criticism of the policy and actions of the Government they are relying on c.tnards and myths, some of which were finally and effectively disposed of at the last general election. Mr. Mason has not scrupled, for example, to revive the exploded fable that the Government, prior to last election, proposed to reduce wages by 7s. fid. per week in order to provide family allowances. Fortunately no one in Eden or in any other part of the Dominion can have forgotten that the Prime Minister and his colleagues stated in the clearest and most emphatic terms that no such intention had ever been entertained. As an indication of the standards of Opposition of which the extreme Labour Party is capable, the revival of this baseless charge is, however, illuminating. In its efforts to suggest that it is qualified to play a useful though humble part in Opposition, the extreme Labour Party is handicapped fatally by its well-known past. Even if it now attempts to assume sheep’s clothing, no one is likely to be deceived. It has undergone no real transformation. The choice in Eden, as at the last general election, is between a party of constructive progress and a party that aims at stirring up class hatred and has not hesitated to put forward proposals involving unblushing confiscation.