WHO ARE THE WORKERS?

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 491, 1 September 1922, Page 2

WHO ARE THE WORKERS?

WHAT MR BURNETT THINKS,, “Since f came into this House,” said Mr T D. Burnett (Tomitka) during tho Budget debate in Parliament Wednesday afternoon, “no'.section of members lias given me greater interest than the official Labour Party, f see before me a party in a stale of evolution, a patty that I am sttro within the next few years will be torn to pieces politically by tho very class that sent them into power. It is the fate of political parties to begin at the bottom and to go through all stages of political evolution, but what amuses me is the claim of the official Labour Party that they are the only representatives of workers in this House. A Labour member: Hear, hoar! That’s true! Mr Burnett: That’s not. true, because when 1 look round this House 1 see the benches filled with all classes of workets. 1 myself have for years worked from 12 to 16 hours a day for ten months of the year at all classes of work, from saving sheep in two feet of snow to fencing gnd mustering, and all sorts of agricultural and pastoral work. I can safely say that the official Labour Party is not by any means representative of the workers of this country. (Voices, Hear, hear!) Wo are all workers, either with ottr brains or our hands. It has been said often that the representatives of the workers and others should get together in Parliament with a view to discussing ways and means of preventing the vicious cleavage that was dividing this country into two great camps and keeping hack its development. If we can not get together and solve this great problem, then wo have mistaken our calling. I came into the House not to indulge in party tactics, but to make the country fit for well-bred men and women of the. Anglo-Geltie race. 1 am not one who wishes to indulge in party tactics. “Although I am from the back-country, where we may nor have n college or the latest style, .1 think we have in a greater degree than tho town-dwellers the faculty of knowing a man when we-see one, and of recognising ability when we meet it. Wo have confidence in only one man on the political horizon to-day—the man who has steered this country through the conditions left by the war. That man is the present Prime Minister.” (Applause.)