GROWTH OF THE WHITE LABOR IDEAL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 10 August 1908, Page 6

GROWTH OF THE WHITE LABOR IDEAL.

& The London Daily Mail's Special Commissioner writes: — Despite the view held in some quarters that owing to the effort to. secure the federation of the British ' South African colonies the local Parliament will only be called upon to perform essential duties, I believe the new session will be one of exceptional interest. If I do not mistake the signs of the times it will be marked by a more vigorous attitude on the part of the Opposition. During the eighteen months .in which | the Boer Ministry have held office the Progressive leaders have ,been content to act upon the defensive. They have not forgotten Lord Milner's last injunction to the British pbpulation, "Defend my works," but they have not acted up to the dictum that the firgt duty of the Opposition is to oppose. The peculiar conditions which prevail in the Transvaal justified their policy. An exhibition of factious /. opposition and obstruction to the* triumphant Dutch would have driven many moderate Britishers into the ranks of Het Yolk or the Nationalists. British ideas of fair play demanded that the new rulers should be given time in which to transform promises into deeds. ' Instant political warfare would have been stigmatised as racialism.- An interval was needed to allow race feeling to die away and to permit of the growth of ordinary political ideas. . ,