LABOUR & CONSCRIPTION

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 146, 21 June 1916, Page 7

LABOUR & CONSCRIPTION

POSITION IN NfiW SOUTH WALES.

(FROM OUR OWN CORBESFONDENI.)

SYDNEY, loth June.

What may develop into an important politioal crisis on the question of conscription is the subject of much discussion in Labour circles in New South Wales. At the instance of the aggressive " industrialist" section,' the recent Political Labour Conference of this State resolved that endorsement should be withheld from any would-be Labour candidate for Parliament who was an advocate of military conscription. The Executive of the Conference has been preparing to give full effect to the resolution, but has come up a-gainst the fact that •the Premier (Mr. Holman) and other members of the Ministry have been speaking in support of conscription in a manner which scarcely admits of recantation. Mr. Holman and his 'deputy, the Minister for Works (Mr. Cann), have during the past two days been, in earnest consultation, in private, with the P.L.L. Executive on the question, and have striven all they know to persuade it tfcait the war situation is such thai it should refrain froni giving effect to the Conference resolution. It is understood, however, that the Executive, which has now been captured by the " industrials," * has tEus far insisted that thb resolution must be unhesitatingly and fully obeyed. At latest the aiatter is unsettled as between the P.L.L. dictators and the Ministers. Apparently, .the Executive is not contend with the compromise attitude taken up by the Ministers that they could regard themselves as justified in continuing their advocacy of conscription if given a lead in that direction by the Federal Government.