A PARLIAMENTARY LABOUR PARTY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1906, Page 4

A PARLIAMENTARY LABOUR PARTY.

In the address which he delivered at Waimate on Saturday, under the auspices of the local Workers' Union, Mr. Arnold, M.H.R., spoke as with authority, though with what authority it is not easy to determine. Mr. Arnold has always been classed as a Labour member, but he has also been a consistent follower of Mr. Seddon, and rarely indeed has he allowed the claims of labour to disturb the even tenor of his political allegiance. Now that Mr. Seddon nas gone, the member for Dunedin South regards the position as entirely changed. With the late Premier in charge, Labour could be content to remain an element in tho great Liberal and Labour combination ; but has not the same grounds for confidence now, and t it must begin to 'assert its independence and strike out for itself. Such appears to be the clear' purport of Mr. Arnold's remarks, according to the report which we received from our Dunedin correspondent yesterday, "Spoaking of the future, he (Mr. Arnold) E.-id that in the past the workers had llr. Seddon to look to but now he was gone, and they must take action. Within a few weeks the Labour Paity would speak, and from that on they would be preparing for the next fight, which would give them a party in the House." According to tho programme sketched by Mr. Arnold, Mr. Seddon must be regarded as having blocked many important demands of tho Labour Party in addition to having conceded otlieis; for the forward movement which Mr. Arnold contem. plates will be a movement far in advance of the Liberal and Labour standard of Mr. Seddon, and not merely an endeavour by independent organisation to safeguard the rights which have been already won. "This Labour Party," says Mr. Arnold, "would have_ these planks in their platform — educational reform, national system to be free from kindergarten to univcr city, referendum with initiative, abolition of trusts, and no present Crown lands to bo sold and none purchased or [ ? and] resold." ' It will be seen that some of these items go, os we say, a good deal further than anything that Mr. Seddon ever puti in his Liberal and Labour programme, but it will be time enough to discuss them in detail when we see that a party has been formed to push lihem which must be seriously reckoned with, and for this, according to Mr. Arnold, wo shall only have to wait a few weeks. In the meantime we may point out that he can hardly claim to speak as yet* foT the Labour party of the colony as a whole, since tfogre has not been time to get a representative expression of its opinion with regard to tlhe altered circumstances which Mr. Arnold regards as demanding a new policy. For whomsoever he speaks, we are thankful for the uncompromising declaration on the land question, which we take to mean — "or" having appaiently been substituted tee "and" by an error in transmission — What no lands already held or to be hereafter purchased by the Crown shall be sold. It is true that this declaration does not go beyond what the Trades and Labour Councils have repeatedly proclaimed, but little has 'been done by the Labour party hitherto in the way of an active propaganda on the subject of land reform, though it really concerns them as deeply as any of the more specific articles of tiheir creed. In other respects we cannot regard with much satisfaction the piopotal unfolded by Mr. Arnold to tho Waimate Workers' Union. Labour is wise to assert its individuality, and in the past its interests have certainly been too often'eubordinated by ifc Parliamentary representatives to the exigencies of party, but it could probably osseit itself with more effect by selecting champions of ft stronger type to urge its claims than by breaking away altogether from existing partyr ties in the manner proposed. If this be open to question, we do not think that from the Parliamentary, standpoint anybody will be prepared to deny the disadvantages and the dangers of «he introduction into our politics of the third-party system. • A party which cdrmes in to hold the balance of power between the two existing partiies may occasionally- "drive a bargain with one of uliem which will give it a temporary gain far beyond its , numerical strength ; but it may by a natiural retaliation lose just as rapidly what it has so gained, and in any event the uncertainty, the instability, the intriguing, which are imparted to politics by such a system would be a terrible price to pay for the problematical advancement of any reform. *