ALLIANCE SPLIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 14

ALLIANCE SPLIT

DISPUTE BETWEEN LEADERS

MR. WALSH REPLIES TO MR. ROBERTS

The dispute between the leaders of the Alliance of Labour was advanced a further stage today, when the president of the Seamen's Federation (Mr. F. P."Walsh) made a reply to th,2 statement of the secretary! of the Waterside Workers' Federation (Mr. J. Roberts),, published in "The Post" last Saturday.

"The Labour Movement by this time has got used to Mr. J.-Roberts making fantastic claims about the important positions he has held in various countries, the inspections of industrial plants he has made throughout the world, the dinner costing £300 he gave to the staff at the 1.L.0. office when at Geneva, and his aptitude to twist statements made by; other officials; members of the Labour ■ Movement will, therefore, I venture to say, after, reading his long, windy effusion that was published in the 'Evening Post', on February 27, cast it aside and' say ;, it is typical 'boloney,'" said Mr. Walsh.

"Mr. Roberts takes the role of an innocent.person who has been forced into this controversy against his; will. He deceives nobody in, . the Labour movement on this score, for, unfortunately for him, his phraseology and style of: writing are as well known in the movement as he is himself. .It is rather late for Mr.' Roberts to bemoan the -fact that the' differences of the Labour movement should be aired in the Press of the 'enemies of Labour,' for,-1 submit, he should have realised this prior to him'getting Mr. Cook to accept the responsibility; for the statement published in 'The' Post' attacking the Alliance : of. Labour, as he must have realised th.at.thei Alliance would be forced to reply in its own defence. I know of no man in the Labour movement who has rushed into the capitalist Press so often to.ventilate differences in the Labour, movement, as Mr. Roberts. There is hardly a prominent official in. our movement that" Mr.; Roberts has not attacked through the ■ capitalist Press. If any one should doubt'the correctness of _this statement,. I refer them to the files of "the 'Evening Post' and the 'Dominion.' It is well I remember reading an article in the 'Transport Worker' by Mr. Roberts, just after he received the appointment to go to Geneva, attacking Mr. Walter. Nash. Further, the.back files of this paper contain article after article by Mr. Roberts in which; he pats himself on the back for steering it clear of politics. ... .'■■■'' POLITICAL ACTION. "It appears that I committed an unpardonable offence in. quoting from the speech. Mr. Roberts made against the remit which urged t the. Waterside Workers' Federation . to consider the advisability of taking^ political action to improve their wages arid conditions of employment. • In an .endeavour to whitewash .'his": past,.'.Mr. Roberts has had the audacity to write a fresh passage into the history of the Labour movement by stating'that his remarks, were made opposing the joining of the federation with-'the' United Labour Party, which was an organisation distinct from '• the Labour Party, as we know it. Professor Mills endeavoured to organise the .United Labour Party in 1912, not in 1919, as Mr. Roberts wants readers to believe. "Mr. Roberts, in an endeavour to' get around the reference he made about Labour 'rats' says his reference to these animals was directed against three men who belonged to the United Labour Party, and ' those men of; the Australian Labour Movement who 'ratted' on the conscription issue over there. The facts are against Mr. Roberts, and this is established beyond "doubt by the language of the remit that was under discussion and the speech made by Mr. Roberts against the adoption of the remit! But before dealing any further with this point, I. desire to point out that the Australian Labour Movement expelled from its ranks all the men who 'ratted' on the conscription issue. Can ' Mr. Roberts deny that he himself was expelled from the New Zealand Anti-Conscrip-tion League? The Australian Labour Movement makes the proud boast that none of the 'rats' on the conscription, issue were taken back into the movement, so Mr. Roberts .hasto thank his lucky stars that it was in' New Zealand he was expelled and not Australia. ATTITUDE OF LEADERS. "In 1919 Mr. Roberts made'the statement that 'the whole political history of Labour can be written in one word, "rat." Every political leader, on attaining power, has more or less- "ratted" on the workers, but the difference' between the industrial rat and the political rat is that the former can be1, and is, put out; but the latter uses his knowledge of the working class to put the economic shackles on the workers in all countries.' At the time Mr. Roberts .made this statement he had the following Labour members- in the House of Representatives: ■ Mr. H. E. Holland, Mr. M. J. Savage, Mr. P. Fraser, Mr. W. E. Parry, Mr. J. McCombs, Mr-D. G; Sullivan, and' Mr.' F. N. Bartram. '■'■''■

"The language of the remit leaves no room for doubt that it referred to the electing-of additional members to Parliament to assist the above mentioned. I herewith quote the remit and'confidently leave it to the judgment of your;readers to .say.'whether the interpretation I place on it is a correct one or not. V'The remit -was" as follows:—'That conference discuss the advisability of the Federation taking, political action, ostensibly, with the'view of returning Labour members' to Parliament; and that a plebiscite vote, of the members of the Federation be taken on the question.' ■ ■ -. -

"The official, report states: 'Mr. Roberts, in reply to Mr. Langley, said "that the Federation had gone 'cap in hand' to the Ministers, and never got a politician" to introduce them. They went to them as men to men, and told them they wanted certain reforms carried out, and in 99 cases out of 100 those reforms had been granted. They never promised to vote for them if they did it —no industrialists ever do that. "We have been handicapped by the politician, who tells 'the workers to board all their troubles out," he said. "If Mr. Langley will show me in the political history of .the world one single thing done by the politician'that has not already been obtained by the people industrially or . collectively, I will give him the point. One speaker said the Seddon Government had given a lot of palliative measures to the people. Yes, they doped them .for 20 years, and.the terrible chaos in the industrial organisation today can be traced back to the dale of the Arbitration Court. In regard to the workers taking a ballot to ' join the Labour Party, I am not against, a referendum on any question, that affects Labour, but I want to say if you. allow this remit to go' through,'any question coming before the Federation,, outside of Federation business,.will"'also have to be laid before the rank and file, because the precedent will then have been established. Political action has nothing to do with you in your industrial occupations. It may have something to do with you in your ordinary avocations in life, and surely the number of societies already existent, with political aspirants at their heads, is sufficient to satisfy the varying tastes

lof every man around the table. No I party, with a platform that would take a lorry and team to carry the timber for its planks from, day to day, will ever bring you a day nearer emancipaj ion. As far as the Miners' Federation being a political party is concerned, there are certain men among them, just as there are certain men among the watersiders, who believe in- political action, but also there are hundreds who are non-political, and no man has a right to say to me: 'You must pay your cash into a political fund because you belong to the Waterside Federation.' Because I belong to this or any other federation has nothing to do with it. I did not say I , was antipolitician, but I said I-should be left free to support the party I choose. No man has a right to force me to belong to any political party 'or any brand of religion. SEDDON GOVERNMENT'S ACTIONS ' "Now,, why .'didl the Federation go to Mr. Wiifoid?, .. Why did not the Seddon Government,, or any other Government, give you the concessions you require? Why did not the Labour Government of .Australia give the workers what they want? In every case, simply because Hhere- ;was: not. an industrial Labour ■ organisation behind the workers sufficiently strong to enforce their,, demands.,,; The Australian trade unions have been spending their money for.the last 30 ; years;in electing Labour members' in .Parliament.,- They have .spent .one arid a quarter millions of money inputting their representatives in power, and in five days the work of 30 years was knocked on the head, dmdrfhe same.; Labour politicians contended 'that the workers should be cracked till they were beaten into. sub-> mission;,and 20 years ago we had MrHolmah putting Marx and the class struggle before the .workers. The whole political history of the Labour riiovement can be ' written in one word —'Rat.' Every political leader, on attaining power, had more or less 'ratted. on the workers,. but. the dif-, ference between the industrial 'rat' and the political 'rat' is that the former can be, and is, put out; but the latter uses'his knowledge of the workingclass to put the economic shackles on the workers, in all countries. "From a logical basis the people who demand political action show a lack of knowledge on political matters. We are told that in 1913 Mr. Massey hammered the workers into submission, and that a Labour Government would not have done so. WHAT HAPPENED IN FRANCE? ■ "In the history of the railway strike in France, Briand, a revolutionary Labour Party leader, called the workers to the colours and compelled them to> scab on themselves/ Under Capitalism, any member of Parliament has to either protect property or confiscate it. To quote Mr.- Griffiths, .of Australia (who was elected to the New South Wales Parliament by the Labour Party), he couldn't borrow money either in England or France until he promised them the contracts for the construction of all railways being built .in' New South' Wales, and also had to grant the sole rights of erecting steel and iron works in New South Wales. The industrial organisations of A.ustralia during the strikes have been killed, and the people who killed them were the rotten Labour Party.. A'representative of the Australian Federation of Miners said to me: '-We had nothing as good ,as you had in New Zealand; our fellows depend on the vote, and the workers went down like ninepins in a strike.' .If you take this referendum you propose; what will happen? I, for one, will oppose tooth and nail joining any political party, and every one of us will either follow suit or will want to run some particular brand of his own, so the Federation will burst up again like it did previously on the same question. They only ask you to give them our funds to let them go on as before in their' own sweet way. I would, help an honest man who stands for what I look for, to get into: Parliament, but will n.eyer advocate any organisation joining a political party as a , body,, because that course always splits up the. members. Just fancy two such, extremes claiming to represent Labour as Harry Holland or Peter Fraser and Mack, of. the A.S.R.S., as we saw in a recent contest in Wellington. There are as many degrees, in the Labour Party as' between' the Liberals and Tories. If we want .to reach our objective, our efforts should be directedentirely to instructing the workers in the industry to recognise 'their true position in society. When they realise that this question of the vote does not matter, all their efforts will be directed to overthrow Capitalism. In reply to Mr Catiham's contention that we got more during the Seddon regime than by any industrial action since, he did not tell us what else we got besides.] We got every penalty that was imposed on us hi 1913 as the. result oi the reactionary legislation brought down by R. J." Seddbn. It was X J. Seddon who :gave us the Arbitration Court to shackle you body and soul ..o the machine that has crippled you throughout. Under a Labour Government the V.ost of living in Queensland has gone up 18 per cent, and wages only 16 per cent, (according to Mr. Knibbs, who is1 one of the best statisticians in Australasia). When the question arose of the number of hours per day that should be worked ;by the railway men, Premier Ryan settled it by appealing to Judge Stringer of New Zealand! This just shows what present-day politicians do, but if you read political history and compare what they have ever done with what the workers1 have done, you will see that the toilers have done it all themselves. The politicians took the credit, but we did the work. Parliaments only ratify what the people have already demanded and organised. When we wm any concession from the employers, you say it was" your president or secretary who got it, but you won it yourselves; and you are right. Ask any member of Parliament who is honest and sincere, and he will admit that he can do nothing unless he is backed up by the men on the job. The moment you introduce such a contentious subject as political action into your organisation, you have struck a worse rock .than any Employers' Association you ever bumped into." "SEVERE MENTAL STRAIN." ' "Mr.-Roberts must have felt good when he finished getting the above, speech off his chest. I don't wish to be in any way rude, but it does appear that Mr. Roberts must have been labouring under some severe mental strain when he made it. It will be noted that dictatorial Mr. Roberts strongly opposed granting the rank and file of the unions that made up the Federation the right to vote on the question of their Federation assisting to get Labour members into

Parliament. To support his case, as against having referred to Labour members as 'rats,' Mr. Roberts quotes from a speech he states he made at Wellington in December, 1918. Accepting his statement that he did make that speech, can Mr. Roberts give an explanation why a month later at Lyttelton he made such scathing reference to our members in Parliament? Mr. Roberts is recognised in the Labour movement as an expert at talking and bluffing his way out of a hole, but, I think, the job is ahead of him to convince the workers of this country that he was not'referring to the New Zealand Labour members in the speech quoted above.

"Mr. Roberts makes the ridiculous .statement that I desired to retain the wage-reducing Forbes-Coates Government in power, without a tittle of evidence to support this charge. My record in the movement gives the lie direct to this charge. The files of the Seamen's Journal are in the office of Mr. Roberts, and I challenge him to quote one line from its pages to sup-' port the charge he makes that I desired to retain the Forbes-Coates wagereducing Government in power. The records of the Labour movement show that the seamen retained their wages for 18 months after the unions Mr. Roberts was associated with had accepted the 10 per cent. cut. The records further show that Mr. Roberts has become famous for side-stepping a fight with the boss, and all that he did against the wage cut was to blow off a lot of hot air, from the steps of Parliament Buildings, when a huge deputation, headed by the seamen, marched to Parliament, to protest against the wage cuts the ForbesCoates Government were inflicting on the workers. HELPING AT ELECTIONS. "Mr. Roberts goes to great length to assert the assistance he has rendered the Labour Party at election times. But an examination of the facts, unfortunately for Mr. Roberts, shows that in the country electorates where he (Mr. Roberts) addressed meetings, the Labour Party candidates were defeated. It is the consensus of opinion in the movement that if Mr. Roberts had kept out of the New Plymouth electorate, his friend, Mr. S. G. Smith, would not be in the House today, and it is also held by prominent Labour supporters that Mr. W. J. Rogers would have won the Wanganui seat for Labour years ago, but for Mr. Roberts butting in and speaking in the electorate. '; "It is quite true that I was a shepherd on my father's farm and I wish to.'state that I have nothing to hide iov, the period I was shepherding, as there was no strike then among the shepherds. Would Mr. Roberts be kind enough to explain to the workers of this Dominion where he was during the latter end of 1913 strike? . "Mr. Roberts asks, 'If Mr. Walsh was such a champion of the Labour Party in 1935, why is it that the seamen were not represented at the Party conference that year?' I desire to inform Mr. Roberts that the seamen were represented at the 1935 Labour Party's Conference, and that the writer attended the conference as their representative. When Mr. Roberts made this statement he was evidently under the impression it was to be-published in the 'Standard,' where.he could usehis dictatorial power as' chairman of the board, to prevent- me. from- replying, as he-has done in the past.' It is unfortunate for. Mr. Roberts that he has missed the bus this time. NEW DEAL AND SOCIALISM. "Mr. Roberts's, claim of being a revolutionary .'Socialist made me smile. But, of course, Hitler makes a similar claim. Mr. Roberts surely^has, not forgotten the trouncing T \ gave him through the columns of the 'Seamen's Journal' in 1933, when he was claiming that Roosevelt's 'New Deal' was Socialism. In making this claim he exposed his total lack of knowledge of the fundamental principles of socialist philosophy. Mr. Roberts is known to Socialists as a 'money crank.' In passing, I just wish to state that the 'money cranks' are, in my opinion, one of the greatest dangers the Labour ■ Government will have to contend with. Space does not permit the going into of the pros and cons of the futility of the monetary reformers'philosophy, but if Mr. Roberts will throw open the columns of the 'Standard' I will debate the question with him there. "In order to appear to be a friend of the workers in the freezing industry who came out on strike, Mr. Roberts has made a number of misleading statements regarding' the actions of the officers of the Alliance of Labour and the policy of the Alliance in relation to the re-organising of the men employed in the freezing works, and particularly is this so in regard to the men whose places were filled by free labourers. Mr. Roberts, in his statement makes it appear that the officers of the Alliance were.unconcerned about getting; the old hands back into the works, whereas the facts are- that, through the Alliance giving assistance to re-organise the industry, a -large number of the old hands are back on the job again. FREE LABOURERS. "Mr.- Roberts makes the astounding statement that he never addressed a meeting of free labourers. Of course, knowing Mr. Roberts as I do, I was not surprised- to read this statement, but I have to assure readers that Mr. Roberts did address a meeting of the representatives of free labourers, and I am in a position to produce' an abundance of evidence to prove that he did. Can Mr. Roberts deny that on his invitation seven free labourers representing the men employed in the freezing works around Masterton met himself and the Council of the Alliance at his office at 80 Manners Street, Wellington, and that after the meeting was over, he took the seven free labourers across the street to a hotel and entertained them to refreshments? His failure as secretary of the Alliance was mainly due. to his tendency to exaggerate events and go off into flights of romancing when giving reports to the Alliance National Council. But for this weakness, Mr.' Roberts may have been a big man in the New Zealand Labour Movement.

"Mr. Roberts appears to have ; exhausted all the words in the dictionary in an endeavour to justify his action in walking out of the 1936 conference of the Alliance. Briefly, the reason why Mr. Roberts left the conference was that when he found himself in'a minority at the conference, he set out to load the minutes of the conference against the president of the Alliance, and when he' found that even his supporters objected to statements he had in the minutes and refused to confirm them, Mr. Roberts lost his head and made a number of loose and ridiculous statements about the other members present and rushed out of thu room like a child. Unfortunately, we had no lollies to give him to calm him down.

"The conference felt that after Mr. Roberts cooled off he would realise the mistake he made in walking out of the conference, so they appointed a deputation to wait on him with the object of bringing about a reconciliation. The deputation duly waited on him,-but were unable to get him to listen to\reason. The conference then got Mr. A. L. Monteith and Mr. Robertson, secretary of the Wanganui District Council, to wait on Mr. Roberts and endeavour to get him to agree to submit his grievance to arbitration. As arbitrators,- three of our present Cabinet Ministers were named, and Mr. Roberts was asked to. select any one of the three to act as arbitrator. But the offer was rejected by Mr. Roberts on the ground that he was not pre-, pared to submit his grievance to arbitration. ' I

■ "But for Mr. Roberts preventing the 'Worker' Company from publishing the Alliance report, all these facts would have been placed in print before the rank and file of the Labour movement. Mr. Roberts, I presume, realised that the facts were against him, and that was why he used his dictatorial powers to prevent the truth reaching the trade unionists. Of this statement I have documentary proof. SEAMEN AND WATERSIDERS. "The accusation made by Mr. Roberts about me having poked my nose into the business of the Waterside Workers' Union has no foundation in fact. I can prove though that Mr. Roberts poked his nose into the affairs of the seamen by going behind closed doors and coming to an agreement with Mr. Bishop, secretary of the Shipowners' Federation, to take away from the seamen work they have been performing ever since a ship sailed the seas. The work that Mr. Roberts grabbed by a back-door method from the seamen was equal to £8 to £10 per month to the men in the ships under 275 net tons register, and because I objected and prevented Mr. Roberts from getting away with this, he accuses me with poking my nose into the affairs of the watersiders. The seamen have no quarrel with the rank and file of the watersiders, and I desire to tell Mr. Roberts that when the Forbes-Coates Government was supporting the ship owners in their attack on the watersiders that the seamen were their best and practically their only friends, and will be so again if needed. If space would permit, I could- show where Mr. Roberts repeatedly let the seamen down in their fights. It will keep, though. "Mr. Roberts says he has a remedy for the accusations I make against him. I ask him to name his remedy, and I challenge him to use it. "Regarding Mr. Roberts's challenge to debate the matter, I am prepared to debate with him at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin and any of the other centres where meetings of interested workers can be arranged, the subject to be: 'That Mr. Roberts's action in walking out of the Alliance Conference in 1936 was inimical to the best interest of the Labour Movement, and that his action in calling a conference in opposition to the Unity conference that is being called by the Alliance of Labour and Trades and Labour Councils Federation is contrary to the best interest of our movement.' "Mr. Roberts says he has stated his case fully and conclusively, and he challenges the writer to refute one iota of what he has said. Whilst I will admit that he has stated his case fully, I cannot agree that he has stated it conclusively, and I am confident that I have succeeded in showing his whole case had no foundation in fact, and I leave the workers to give their verdict."