TWENTY-ONE YEARS

Grey River Argus, 6 December 1940, Page 10

TWENTY-ONE YEARS

A LABOUR DAILY. It is now twenty-one years since the “Grey River Argus” first threw its challenge to the Capitalist system on the West Coast by starting out as a Labour Daily newspaper. Due to the efforts of a. few enthusiasts on the West Coast some twenty-two years ago an organisation was launched through the Grey Labour Representation Committee to raise sufficient funds to purchase a controlling interest in the “Grey River Argus” Company, Limited. And the thanks of those who have benefited through the activities of the “Argus” are due to the little band who worked night and day tramping, canvassing, collecting, sacrificing so that we should get sufficient funds to start with. We had our reward when we paid our first deposit on the purchase of the paper; we were proud when George Hunter (now M.L.C.), paid £l,OOO into the Bank of New Zealand to relieve a pressing overdraft which the Company had accumulated. We were prouder still when our first paper was issued. We are proud now that we have come through our first twenty-one years and are about to celebrate the occasion with an appropriate function. Twenty-one years of ups and downs and ins and outs. Twenty-one years, of trying to persuade the workers of the West Coast where their real interest lay. And step by step, and bit by bit, we have travelled onwards; always upholding the Labour Movement and never allowing ourselves to be sectionalised. There was only one movement to us—the Labour Movement—and no matter how the workers quarrelled over different forms ofi trade unionism they wished to follow or some praticular brand of politics they thought better than any other, we still kept the “Argus” steering toward our Great Objective, the Co-op-erative Commonwealth. Gradually we saw the scales falling from the eyes of those who could not see. We saw New Zealand turn from Toryism to Labour. We saw a Labour Government. We saw benefits for the aged, the invalids, the temporary sick, the widow, the orphan, and the unemployed that twenty-one years ago were not thought possible. Yes we have accomplished much; but there is still plenty to do. We have to consolidate. We have to make ready for the next twenty-one years. We can, at our Anniversary banquet, talk over the past and the future we can lay our plans, and make our vows for as much success in the years to come asi in the past. It will be worth while this gathering.—COME.