A VISITING LABOUR DELEGATE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 93, 17 October 1906, Page 6

A VISITING LABOUR DELEGATE.

Mr. , Ramsay Mac Donald, the British Parliamentary Labour delegate, now on a visit to the Australasian colonies, must have rather staggered his Sydney Labour friends at tho gathering arranged for his welcome by the Sydney Political Labour League. Judging by tho brief summary of t^ie Address forwarded by the Pres3 Association yesterday, Mr. Mac Donal d' gave full rein to his fe3ling3 towards V/hat he termed "the plutocracy," and the violence of his invective, while familiar enough to Labour audiences in England, must^have sounded unreal and out cf tune with colonial sentiment. "In tracing the growth of the industrial system in England," the report stated, "Mr. MacDonald said the plutocracy they were fighting was not moroly tho rich class, bub the vulgar class who degraded everything they touched ; whoso art woa morely ostontatious vulgarity, whoso literature Was degrading, whoso commercial morality sapping the Christian conscience, and whose religion was largely cant, humbug, and make-be-hcvo." It will be seen that Mr. MacDonald's attack, thoiigh directed against the rich generally, is particularly strong in its reference to the "vulgar" rich, which would almost make It appear that this democratic Labour leader has a sneaking regard for the wealthy and cultured aristocrat in preference to the man of wealth who has risen from tho ranks, and whose good taste has not developed in proportion to his fortune. Mr. Mac Donald will probably learn some useful lessons in relation to Labour before ho leaves thetje colonies, and one of the first will bo that the extromes of wealth and poverty which exist in England, and which accentuate the condition of things that has led to the violent language used by him and many of his follow Labour leaders, does not prevail here. Poverty of a kind wo have and wealth also in minor degree, but neither approach the extremes of the Mother Country, and Labour here has ever at her call the Goddess Opportunity. Tho visiting Labour delegate in the course of his enquiries may meet with disappointment. Ho will probably find that our experimental legislation has not in all cases achieved exactly what was expected of it, and that the real test of bad times has yet to be borne ; but he will have no doubt left in his mind as to the influence Labour has had in Shaping the affairs of these young countries, and as to the satisfactory condition of things in general in relation to what are popularly known as the working classes.