Grey River Argus MONDAY, February 17th, 1930. A CLUMSY MISREPRESENTATION.

Grey River Argus, 17 February 1930, Page 4

Grey River Argus MONDAY, February 17th, 1930. A CLUMSY MISREPRESENTATION.

For rather a lame attack on the policy of the New Zealand Labour Party, our Hokitika contemporary borrows some thunder from an Otago paper, which would attach significance to its statement thst “in Christchurch ! a number of people have formed a N.Z. Independent. Labour Party, whose title is liable to cause confusion. since it embraces a N Z. Women’s Moderate Political Party.’’ The only semblance of a reason for its existence given bv this new narty is thus stated: —“The time has long since passed for any narty in New Zealand : to embody the policy of the late Ballance-Seddon Government of 30 years ago.” Why the papers referred to should expect their readers to see in this statement any ground for differing with the Labour Party is left to conjecture, for they both deny the claim of the Labour Party to be the real successors of the LiberalLabour Party of the nineties. Thus we are told that “every person who has bought a house or has become the possessor of shares in any company or is the depositor' of funds in a savings bank, or has used his savings in acquiring property of any kind is a capitalist, and because he is a capitalist, is liable to bo despoiled if the Labour Party obtains the chance to carry its policy fully into execution.” How any paper has the effrontery either to print or reprint such an assertion is beyond comprehension, when every one of its readers must be aware how steadfastly the Labour Party members .'.ill work to enable people to become the owners of their own houses, and Io secure for them such a rale of wages as will allow at least something to be deposited in a savings bank in order that it may be used to acquire a house ■ or any other kind of property. If these critics could cite one tittle of evidence that the Labour Party has ever opposed the people, one and all. owning their own houses, they would undoubtedly do so, in order to lend some show of colour to their allegation, but they are well aware no such evidence exists, and so they are driven to the expedient of making out that thy ideal of the Labour Party means that nobody shall own houses! The people of the West Coast, to go no further, are well aware with what energy, its Parliamentary representatives have always worked for constituents seeking xvith the aid of the State to become the owners of their own homes. It is the same in respect to the industries of the district, which its Parliaments ry representatives lose no opportunity of assisting by every means in their poxver. In the face of such tangible facts to which everybody can bear xvitness, is it not mere moonshine to insinuate, as the “Guardian” docs, through the quotations of some anonymous doctrinaire critic, I hat the Labour Party is 'working ultimately to deprive every householder of every vestige of his or her property? It would actually appear that the coterie xvho at Christchurch propose to have their oxvn little party consider that the Labour Party is at fault precisely because it believes in every householder being the owner of his home, ;o that if there is any significance in this new party it is that Labour has in Parliament been only too faithful to the ideals xvhich thirty years ago inspired a democratic political movement, and xvhich were extinguished only when the spirit of monopoly revived to deny, not in theory, but in practice, the means of ownership to hundreds of thousands still dispossessed both of land and houses all over the country. As the ‘ ‘ Guardian’s ’ ’ authority says:— “Mr H. E. Holland does not tire of claiming that the Labour Party of lhe present time is the direct successor in policy of the LiberalLabour Party that supported the Ballance Government, and it is possible that Hie promoters of,the Independent Labour Party liave unquestionably accepted that claim.” Thus it cannot be suggested that this new party is an evidence that the Labour Party is a menace to workers xvho own their homes. The “Guardian” tries to explain away the support given the Labour Party by tens of thousands of workers who oxvn their homes by suggesting that “they may support it because 1 they are moved by a sense of 1 class-consciousness or because the principles of the other parties 1

make no strong appeal to them.” I Now we would like our contem- , porary to dilate, not indeed upon the lack of appeal in the principles of the other parties, but that “class-consciousness.” That is indeed the explanation. The supporters of Labour know quite well to what class they belong. 'The Labour Party indeed is their creation, lust as it was their inspiration which animated the old Liberal-Labour Party uittil it fell under the dominance of the wealthy class. The workingclasses of all sections are conscious that the only party that stands for those living solely by their earning power is the Labour Party, and the misinterpretation of the Party’s platform is not going to pull the wool over their eyes, after they have seen the actual way in which the Party itself interprets and carries ou-t its policy.