“SOCIALISM IN OUR TIME”

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 9, 5 October 1927, Page 11

“SOCIALISM IN OUR TIME”

CHIEF FIGHT AT BRITISH LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE CENTRES AROUND SLOGAN MR. MACDONALD URGES CAUTION By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright. London, October 3. The chief fight at the Labour Party Conference at Blackpool centres around the slogan “Socialism in our time.” ’Already Mr. J. R. MacDonald has bespoken caution, lest impetuosity defers Labour’s ultimate triumph. Nevertheless, many leaders are chiding the executive with not having the framework of the policy ready. The executive will meet criticism by an amendment urging that social reorganisation should be the main plank at the next election,

OPENLY COMMUNISTIC REASON FOR TEACHERS’ DISAFFILIATION SECESSION OF SEAMEN’S UNION London, October 3. Members of the Labour Party asBembled at Blackpool for the annual conference. The first business was raised by the question, Why the Teachers’ Labour League was disaffiliated? Mr. Ramsay MacDonald explained that the teachers’ were a body they were anxious to have within the party, but individuals of the league were so openly Communistic that there was no option but to disaffiliate them. The conference then gave attention to the case of Mr. Havelock Wilson, arising from the executive’s report regretting the Seamen’s Union’s secession.

Mr. Crick ased why it was the union was not disaffiliated. No man had done more damage to political Labour than Havelock Wilson. Mr. Herbert Smith moved to omit any expression of regret, because he said the seamen were better out than in the movement. It looked as if the executive had been attending a prayer meeting.

Mr. Arthur Henderson said that in view of what had recently happened the executive, by deference to the conference’s wishes, withdrew the expression of. regret. The afternoon was devoted to secret discussions of the serious state of the finances, notwithstanding that affiliation fees had been doubled.

UNIONISTS TURNING FROM POLITICS TO INDUSTRY

(Rec. October 4, 10.10 p.m.)

London, October 3.

‘•lndustry is on the point of revival,” said Sir Alfred Mond, speaking at Cardiff: “Many steps can be taken for the reorganisation and co-ordination of our industries to enable us to compete with the stable industries of Europe and America, but the task is arduous and requires time, credit, capital, and the confidence of the business world. The surtax proposal of the Labour Party, by which they expect to raise a hundred millions, is the capital lew in a new garb, and, as is usual with Labour finance, it entails a gross mistake in calculation. If the sources of this taxation are analysed it is seen that the utmost it is possible to obtain would be forty million. Meanwhile the. movement towards industrial peace is growing apace and trade unionists are turning from politics to industry.” AMERICAN LABOUR FEDERATION EXECUTIVE ADVOCATES RETURN OF BEER New York, October 3. The forty-seventh convention of the American Federaion of Labour, under the presidency of Mr. W. Green, was opened at Los Angeles. Outstanding interest was contained in the report of the executive council, which advocates the return of beer, and the introduction of a five-day week. In three conventions Labour has pointed out the deplorable conditions which would come, and had come, from the enforcement of the Volstead Act. "We contended that 2.75 beer would bring about true temperance,” says the executive, which declares that conditions are steadily growing worse. Wholesome beer could be introduced without interfering with the Eighteenth Amendment;—Sydney “Sun” Cable.