LABOUR IN PARLIAMENT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 July 1924, Page 16

LABOUR IN PARLIAMENT.

TRADE UNION CONTROL

With its rise to Parliamentary power the British Labour Party is learning lessons similar to those which have been forced upon the corresponding party in Australia. Writing in the English Review on “Trades Unionism and Political Power,” Mr. J. Gv Lockhart says that the Labour leaders and representatives are in a most embarrassing position. The ordinary member of Parliament owes allegiance to his party and to his constituency. But the Labour member has another body to whom he must defer, a body far more suspicious and exacting than any constituency or political organisation. He is the servantiArf a union. The union has made him, and can break him. Let him. oppose the wish of the union; and he is finished. His political career is ended and he drops back as a private into the ranks of Labour

Nor are his masters easy to please. The district branch of a union is the home of the extremist. It i s dominated ffiy the organising delegate, a paid official whose chief duty in life is to extract concessions from employers and to prevent concessions from the workpeople He is a necessary part of the Labour organisation; his position depends on the efficiency with which he maintains his brief. He never meets the employer except for purposes of controversy; and, as a rule, he has not the responsibility for - negotiating a settlement when a dispute has become critical. As a result he almost always belongs to the extreme section of the Labour Party, and he divides his ! time between suggesting impossible policies to his union and urging his representatives in Parliament to agitate for their realisation. At present he exercises a disproportionate influence in the Labour Party. Even Mr. Thomas cannot afford altogether to forget the National Union of Railwaymen, and Mr. dynes must pay some attention to the General Workers. There are some leaders of Labour, who recognise the responsibility of their position, and, at the risk of unpopularity, preach sanity to their followers; but there are few, if any, who in time of crisis will not choose the wav of concession, or at least of compromise. In its lack of real leadership lies the danger of the Labour movement.