LABOR AND POLITICS.

Evening Star, Issue 14572, 22 May 1911, Page 1

LABOR AND POLITICS.

NEW ZEALAND FEDERATION’S IDEAL. LESSON OF THE RFERENDDM. [Special to the Stah.] AUCKLAND, May 20. The matter of the attitude of the New Zealand Federation of Labor towards politics was explained to a ‘ Star ’ reporter this morning by Mr Peter Semple, tbs organiser for the Federation. Some special interest attaches to this, on account of this body not at the moment joining forces politically with the Trades and Labor Federation. “It is generally rumored,” said Mr Semple, •* that the New Zealand Federation of Labor are a body that take up an anti-political attitude. That is not so. The New Zealand Federation of Labor.recognise that the workers must be first drilled in the field of industry to hare a knowledge of what they want and how to get it. When tihey are so drilled their political party will naturally be the reflection of an intelligent and organised industrial democracy. Take, for instance, the Referendum in Australia. We contend that the defeat of the Labor party in that effort was due to the fact that the industrial organisations had been neglected ; that the Labor party had gained political supremacy merely through momentary enthusiasm, and not through continuous agitation and education in the industrial field. The very people who thrust them into power, when appealed to to give them power to do what they thought their duty to do, refused them that power. That proves conclusively that the worker* were not well organised, and did not know exactly what they wanted. The New Zealand Federation of Labor, profiting by the experience of Australia* are determined that the educational work shall be done in the industrial world first, and when we realise that sufficient work has been done there wc will turn our attention to the political machinery.”