THE POLITICAL LABOUR LEAGUE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13937, 20 December 1905, Page 5

THE POLITICAL LABOUR LEAGUE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I have read carefully your subleader iu Friday’s issue dealing with the above organisation, and the first thought aroused was of anger, and then contempt, for the ungenerous nature of the remarks, and with the cheap sneers, and sarcasm running through the effusion. , o Now, can you inform your readers what authority you have and why you go grossly insult the nine gentlemen who contested seats on behalf of the Labour League, by saying: “The only other factor that can have contributed to their discomfiture at the polls was the crass stupidity with which they were dragged into the field against the advice or all the real friends of labour?” This remark of yours reminds me of the treatment meted out to the prohibitionists some years ago, when they were advised by all the real friends of temperance to take some other course than that decided upon by the said prohibitionists. They did not believe that their advisers were their real friends, and subsequent events hav© proved this opinion to be correct. Neither do I believe that you are the real friends of labour, and we do> not purpose upon such advice to depart from the course laid down ' for us by the most thoroughly representative, and the highest labour tribunal in the colony, viz., the Trades Councils Conference of 1904: when they carried the following resolution by sixteen votes to three: —‘ ‘ That conference is of opinion that an independent labour party should bo formed immediately, to effectually organise and secure proper representation in parliament and on municipal and other bodies.” This may he, as you term it—“ A hare-brained scheme for securing the welfare of the democracy,” but it is a scheme, which I can assure you quite a number of earnest, and enthusiastic persons are determined to pursue until we command success, and when successful wo may even receive (and this is more than probable) the commendation of true friends of labour, such as i y ou . I . It would be interesting to know what i your objection to the constitution of | the League is. There may, of course, be some valid objections to it, but until such time as you state them I am pre- : pared to believe that those persons whom you accuse of having been de- , luded by the League into accepting it | are better qualified to pass an ox>inion | upon it than is a strong partisan, even though such a one bo an editor. Your appeal to the “ Liberal Labour ' Party to emphatically dissociate itself from all nonsense of this sort ” will, no doubt, be attended to by that august body—whoever they may be. But if in the “Liberal Labour Party ” you include the organised workers, 1 for one, am full up of the alliance you refer to; and certainly do' not agree with you that we have gained enormously by our association. Let me illustrate. The Labour Party of the colony believe in, and advocate, increased graduated taxation, periodic revaluation of leases, and are opposed to freehold land tenure. I n the past election a secretary of a Trades Council having announced himself as a. candidate in the Liberal Labour _ interests, ho retired from the contest in the interests of a man who is opposed to all these principles of the Labour Party, because he did not want to split the Liberal vote. An alliance of this sort, j where one of the parties are expected

to make all the sacrifices is not good enough for me, and I believe that a “ benevolent assimilation ” of this sort, (as the boa constrictor said to the rabbit) is repugnant to most of the thinkers in the Trades Union movement.

You state: “If the workers had their representatives on the narrow lines proposed by Mr Rigg,” etc., etc. Now, let mo disabuse your mind of this fallacy. Neither Mr Rigg nor the Labour League desire representation on narrow lines. We contend that the wage-earners are over 75 per cent of: the bread-winners, while these employing them for the profit they obtain fx-oin their labour only number 3.06 per cent; or, in other words, it was shown on the last census return that thei'e was 224,346 male and female wage-earners and unemployed, and there were 36,012 employers (none of them out of work), employing these wage-earners; and yet in view of this fact we are accused of narrowness in desiring representation in accordance with our -numbers I

You may continue to call this narrowness, and to urge- upon us the necessity to ‘ ‘ have earnest devotion to the high principles which concern the capitalists and the professional man and the old age pensioner.” Let me, assure you of my belief that thei'e is an earnest devotion to high principle abroad among the workers, which the average editor di’eams not of, a devotion that will prevent any permanent injury being done, say,; to old age pensioners, and this sanfo earnest devotion to high principle rill, I trust, be earnest and devoted enough to prevent those high principles which concern the capitalists ever obtaining that complete grip over the lives of the workers of this colony that it has over the lives of the woi'kers of the older laopls, whei’e the high principles of capitalism are grinding the faces of the poor and needy, and making their lives one ceaseless, horrible fight against poverty, simply that these capitalist exploiters may heap up their capital and subsidise the newspaper press to teach the wage-earners morality. I am for preventing the time coming Lix this country when the workers will, as in England now, he forced to go cap in hand and to send their wives through the streets of London to plead their right to work that they may live and be sent empty away by the Liberal Premier. lam working along with many other determined men for the time when the workers of this “ God’s own country” shall not be dependent uoon any capitalist for the right to live, hut when every able and willing worker shall live a full, free, independent life, and when production shall be for use; and not for individual profit; and, because I am for tins good time, I am also 1 for an Independent Labour Party in Parliament, believing that only such a party can bring, about a “consummation so devoutly to be wished.”—l am, etc., J. A. M’CULLOUGH.