Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1931. "CLASS INTERESTS"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 82, 8 April 1931, Page 8

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1931. "CLASS INTERESTS"

That "England's danger is ' Ireland's iopportunity" was a sound maxim of Irish patriotism at a time when it could logically represent the relation between the two countries as virtually one of war, and an analogous logic is quite good enough for some of our Labour politicians. At the New South Wales Labour Conference on Monday one of the delegates is reported to have declared "in a fiery speech" that he was prepared to give his blood for the cause. Their slogan should be "Sinn Fein." "Sinn Fein"—"Ourserves Alone" —is exactly the logic of which we speak, and we need not go as far as Sydney in order to illustrate its operation. Not yet has it been held in this country, as it has been held by Mr. Lang in New South Wales, to justify, in the supposed interests of Labour, the repudiating of the honourable obligations of the State and the shattering of the credit on which the welfare of the wage-earner is just as dependent as that of anybody else. Nor in his busy life has Mr. H.-E. Holland yet found time to tell us what he thinks of the proposal of some of his own hot-heads to enforce their demands by a general strike or by refusing to pay rent or interest, or of their parade of the emblems of Bolshevism. These things are fortunately no part of the policy of Mr. Holland's parly, but to create a clash by denouncing them might be inexpedient. The wise leader sticks to generalities just as long as he can. The generalities of Mr. Holland's eloquent statement to the Labour Conference yesterday were indeed to a large extent so general as to be almost meaningless, but a perfectly definite thing about the whole of-it was its permeation by the logic and the spirit to which we have referred. That New Zealand's danger is Labour's opportunity, and that Labour's policy should he "ourselves alone," are the two points which stand out most clearly in this statement of the Parliamentary Labour Party. The greatest of all opportunities to capture Now Zealand politically is now knocking at Labour's doors, says tho report. Let us see to it that we seize the opportunity. But do not let us mislead ourselves;into tho belief that our opponents will be inactive. Millions of money were involved in the prolonged fight which has just been waged in the House. Millions of money ■will be involved in the greatest fight now to bo waged in tho constituencies at'the end of this year. .. . Money in abundance will be found to finance every attack on the political Labour movement, from whatever source it may come. Furthermore, the enemies of Labour will leave no stone unturned to precipitate a national industrial conflict during the next eight or nine months. « We learn from this report that there is war on, but not a war of the kind which an overwhelming majority of the people of New Zealand have hitherto supposed. It is not a Avar against the common enemy of this country and every other, a war demanding the subordination of party and sectional differences to a great national effort of self-sacrifice and co-operation. It is not a national war at all. It is merely the old class war of the days of general prosperity extended and embittered by a temporary depression and presenting to one class a unique opportunity for establishing its supremacy. The Dominion's danger is Labour's, opportunity. Though Mr. Holland was affecting a few weeks ago to belittle the economic crisis and censuring the Prime Minister for refusing to trust to optimism and verbiage for the balancing of his Budget, he spared no effort yesterday to exaggerate the magnitudeof the interests which Labour has at stake, and of the forces bent on its destruction. Millions were involved in the fight on the Finance Bill. . More millions will be involved in the "greatest right" on record at the General Election. But, whether the forces arrayed against Labour win or lose that fight, they will apparently still have .'millions' to spare for a fight that will be greater than the greatest, and will be fought concurrently with it or immediately afterwards, for the enemies of Labour will leave no stone unturned to precipitate a national industrial conflict during the next eight or nine months. Mr. Holland may well speak of the "desperate endeavours" and the "desperate measures" that will be forthcoming to rob Labour of its rights. These capitalists are desperate men, indeed, if when incomes have come .headlong down and are still falling, when capital is being written off or lying idle in unprecedented fashion, and many once prosperous industries arc thankful if they can keep going at all, they are contemplating a wholesale industrial warfare which, oven if they won, could only aggravate l heir lo?se=. But it must br. admitted l.hat these capitalist and bourgeois folk are as

foolish as they arc dcspcrale. "The session will live in history" for two reasons, says Mr. Holland's report. The first is the "sustained fight" made by the Labour Party against the wage reductions. In passing we may note that the success of the foolish and otherwise futile tactics of the Labour Party in depriving the minority in a New Zealand Parliament of the almost unique power which it previously possessed is the aspect of these tactics which is most likely to live in history. It (tho session) will also be remembered, tho report proceeds, because of tho manner in which predominating class interests drove two parties into solid combination against the salary and wage earners of the Dominion. A happier misstatement could hardly have been made. If the United-Re-form combination has really attacked "the salary and wage earners of the Dominion," what votes can it expect lo get? The fact is that the cut only reduces the salaries and wages in the Public Service by an amount probably smaller than that which is already taking place in the market, and that the general power given to the Arbitration Court is limited to the varying of award wages in accordance with economic conditions. Even apart from the urgent need for the reduction of the cost of government, there seems to be no reason whatever why-the Public Service should be exempted from a process which is normal outside the Service, and it is equally unreasonable that at such a time award workers should be paid more than their work is worth, or,than the harassed industries concerned can afford. It is the complete obsession of Mr. Holland's mind by class interests that compels him to put them above the interests of the nation.