LABOUR AND PROHIBITION

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 41, 16 August 1918, Page 3

LABOUR AND PROHIBITION

TO TllH EDITOR.

Sir, —In your issue of the 13th inst. you publish a letter from M. J. Mack, in which he asks me to produce my credentials, because ho asserts that I have no authority to speak for Labour in New Zealand. In my previous letter I never presumed to speak for Labour, and I am conversant enough with tho Labour movement in New Zealand not to do so until Labour says I shall, and I only wish other alleged representatives of Labour would do the same.

Mr. Mack states that the workers and the workers only can speak for themselves in no uncertain way if given a poll on this question. Any one would think that the workers never had an opportunity to express themselves upon this question; Mr. Mack knows that the whole of the people in New Zealand, in 1914. had a.n opportunity of speaking on this question, and we know in what uncertain way they declared against Prohibition, and I give Mr. Mack and his Prohibitionist friends all the satisfaction those figures give them. Now as to my credentials, Mr. Mack knows that my credentials have never been challenged, either at an open congress in 1917, or 1918. Can he say the same for himself? _ Further, all the unions who are affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee have my credentials in their possession, and they also have an opportunity of electing someone to the position that I hold in that committee twice every year, and, I want to whisper to Mr. Mack, there is no salary attached to the position. Now, docs Mr. Mack hold his position in the Labour movement under similar" conditions? If he does not, then it is because he does not believe in giving the workers every opportunity of speaking for themselves upon that question as well as upon the liquor question. I want to remind Mr. Mack that an ounce of example is worth a ton of advice.—l am, etc., E. KENNEDY.

15th August.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In your article on "Patriotism or Tactics?" you stated that the Moderate League and the Labour Party were working for State control. As one who takes a keen interest in Labour matters, I can assure you the two parties are as far apart a-s it is possible to be. The . object of the Moderate Party is State purchase at present values. The object of the Labour Party is pure liquor at a reasonable price, and the licenses to sell liquor are owned by the State and are only leased to the present holders until the 30th, June. As most of the present licensed houses are on the most expensive sites in town, and are also too largo for the purpose of a saloon, they would be a hindrance to the objects of the Laibour Party; so Labour cannot see anything to purchase from the present holders except in the case of breweries. There are still a few men like Mr. E. Kennedy, a delegate to the Trade and Labour Council, who has not attended half a dozen meetings of the council in the last twelve months, and are hopelessly out of touch with progressive Labour, who would support the Moderate League, but, Sir, they are very few indeed.—l am, etc., LABOUR.