Evening Post. MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1906. PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 143, 18 June 1906, Page 4

Evening Post. MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1906. PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

The executive of the Otago Trades and Labour Council has lost little time in replying to the manifesto issued by the Employers' Federation of New Zealand, which we reviewed on the 9th inst., but, as was to be expected, it has not advanced matters much. General discussions on the proper functions of the State or the ultimate* constitution of society can, as wo previously urged, have little but a confusing efieet upon the practical issuß which both employers and workers are- organised to contest ; and in our opinion, therefore, the Trades and Labour Councils would be Miser to say so than to follow their adversaries into such vague and shadowy regions. The people of this colony have hitherto decided, and will continue to decide, these questions on much more solid grounds. Not "Is it Socialistic?" or "Is it individualistic?" but "Has it worked well? Does it work well? Or is there any good reason for oupposing that it will work well!" is the sort of question that practical men put to themselves with regard to any scheme {hat the State is asked to initiate or to continue j and a majority of the people of the colony are eminently practical — far too practical, indeed, to be much swayed by abstviu-u definitions and academic theories. The executive of the Otago Trades and Labour Council, however, is quite ready for the fray on the lines proposed by tils employers, and, disdaining any limitations, it is just as willing to discuss tho merits and demerits of Socialism as those of a clause in the latest award of the xirbitration Court. Whatever tactical advantage the Employers' Federation might hope to gain by an enlargement of the discussion has been conceded with alacrity by opponents who' are satisfied that they can win just as easily on this ground as on ahy other. "We are not afraid of the future welfare of the colony," says the executive of the Otago Trades Council, "on account of our Socialistic legislation, or on account of the decidedly Socialistic trend which things are taking." For our own part, we have no fears for the future welfare of tho colony on account of anything that is contained in tho labour laws, and as we are. not guided by names or labels, it matters nothing to us whether the Trades Councils eulogise this kind of legislation as Social- I istic, or Socialists denounce it as merely calculated to perpetuate the evils of competition and capitalism by glossing them over. But names and labels count for a good deal with a considerable section of the public nevertheless, and the average man who has accepted the Arbitration Act upon its merits is just as likely as not to be made 'uneasy by the proof or tho attempt to prove that it , spells Socialism. Certainly dialectics of this kind will not make him any readier to take the next step iri advance to Which the Labour Party may invite him ; on the contrary, not having settled tho abstract merits of Socialism to his own satisfaction, or perhaps bavin" come to an adverse conclusion, he will bo loss inclined to take a step which he is assured at tho same timo can only be logically taken by those who havecome to the opposito conclusion on tho general question. Nothing, it seems to us, is gamed for tho present demands ol Labour, and a good deal may be lost, by tho willingness of the party to accopt the employers' invitation to complicate their consideration with the ac ™° imc discussion now under way The practical issue which figures most prominently in the rejoinder to the employer* manifesto, as in the manifesto itself^ is the 1 question of preference to unionists, and this provides a much more profitable topic for discussion It is properly pointed out that "if we 'have compulsory unionism, the employer will haVe no restrictions, because then evervono m a particular trado will be a unionist, instead of as at present being restricted to only those who are on the union book, because he cannot now emP % * no n-unionist while a unionist is available." But the substantial question is not as to tho number of members in a union, but as to the terms of admission, and if preference were conceded on condition of the' unions keeping an absolutely open door, the dispute would be nettled— not, however, in a way that would do the Unionists any good, for universality and preference are mutually contradictory. A universal preference is a preference oi nobody. The arguments 01 the Jimployers' Federation under this head are dismissed as "only a sample of the ignoranco and want of knowledge of the subject displayed by our critics"; and the confident hope is expressed that the victory of labour over its "persistent opponents— the employers and the press" —is assured, "let these- forces blcab ns loudly w they like." The arguments of the Otago Trades and Labour Council would lose nothing of their force if they were expressed with a nicer regard for the canons of good taste.