THE LABOUR PLEDGE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15900, 11 April 1912, Page 6

THE LABOUR PLEDGE.

THEjmbour Unity Conference has not carried its proceedings to a very definite stage, and it is impossible, yet to Ba y

whether or not a comprehensive organisation of the workers is going to be brought into existence. The decision of the railway men to “stay outside shows that the campaign of Professor Mills has not been entirely successful, but a very important advance has been made towards the union of the Radical forces by the decision to abandon the parliamentary pledge. The objections to this pledge from the point of view of the workers themselves are unanswerable. The promise to obey blindly the decisions of a committee or a caucus, representing one section only of the community, cannot bo given by a man who has any claim to independence of spirit or originality of thought. Mie effect of the pledge has been to limit the field in the choice of Labour candidates by excluding many men who havo long been in the forefront or political progress, as well as others who have qualified by study and thought to lead the way along paths that none of us as yet can discern quite clearly. A general affirmation of the Labour policy can be given by almost any advanced thinker of to-day. The arbitrary pledge of obedience is a different matter, and its removal from the Labour f)lan of campaign will do a great deal to assist in the consolidation of the progressive forces.