The Hawera Star. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1926. LABOUR AND THE COMMUNISTS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 14 April 1926, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1926. LABOUR AND THE COMMUNISTS

Delivered ever}’ evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley, tlokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere. Fraser Road and Ararata.

u Labour has become respectable,” is the essence of the taunt flung out by the New Zealand Communist Party, by way of answer ,to the decision of the recent Laborir Party conference, which denied affiliation to the Communist organisation. So many conference resolutions fail to bear out the promise of the clothes they wear, that this one might have passed unheeded by the general public were it not for the hurt protest of Mr Jeffreys, organiser of the Communist Party, who, in reporting to a Wellington audience that lie was “turned down with a thud” at Wanganui, added “The Labour Party would have nothing to do with revolutionary methods or direct action. It is clear that the members of the New Zealand Labour Party are endeavouring to live down their past. /This is the first, time it. has ever definitely deviouneed rovo-, lutjonary methods or direct, action.”' Now, it is possible that this' rejection arid subsequent public protest of the rejected is mere!}’’ a political smokescreen. It is known that the Communist Party is small and without any appreciable influence in this country; and it is known, too, that it has> closer affinity with Labour than with any other of the parties existing under the present system of government. It may have been arranged that the two should co-operate to bluff the public, for the Labour leaders are wise enough to see that extreme methods do not commend themselves to, the people of

New Zealand, and that a party which

refuses to have anything to do with

the forces of revolution gains support by that refusal. But such co-operation would be unworthy both of the traditions of New Zealand polities and of the higher ideals of the Labour movement, for which reasons the average citizen will prefer to be charitable and to believe that the Labour Conference was sincere in 'its expressed decision to have no truck with Communism. If so, it is but following the lead of political Labour in Britain. Indeed, the wonder is that a definite stand lias not been made earlier; for Labour and Communism are not, and never have been, blood brothers. It suited certain political organisations last October to spread the impression that the two are identical, but that is no so. However ill-defined the. aims of Labour may be, however unpractical the methods it proposes for the accomplishment of those ideals, its procedure is constitutional. The whole idea of Communism is anarchical. Much in the Labour platform is sound, because it aims at building up. The whole of Communism is bad, because its purpose is to smash down. Those of us who believe the present economic system, though by no means perfect, to be infinitely more practical- and more practicable than any other yet devised by the mind of man, oppose Labour because Labour’s avowed aim is to establish an era of Socialism —one of the more idealistic but -least practical of the proposed substitutes for the present system. • But Socialism is not Communism; Socialism is not born of Russia. It is a political faith—might even be called an orthodox political faith —just as Conservatism and Liberalism are. Communism is no political faith, but a doctrine of destruction. It remains for the New Zealand Labour Party, from, Mr Holland to Mr O ’Dea, from Mr Semple to Mr Sheat, to prove the worth of its newlyfound objection to direct action and revolution. It is not enough that the Communist Party be refused affiliation to the Labour movement. There are those within the ranks of the party who prate loudly of the glories of the Russian revolution, and take every possible opportunity to malign the British Empire. Until- it can get rid of these, and convince the public of its undivided loyalty to the Constitution and the Throne, Labour will hope in vain for the support of a majority of the people of New Zealand.