LABOUR PARTY CONTROL

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 101, 30 March 1925, Page 11

LABOUR PARTY CONTROL

WHAT IT MEANS TO INDUSTRIES. (Contributed by Now Zealand Welfare League.) The “N.Z. Labour Party” (which is definitely Socialist) with its twin brother, the Alliance of Labour (a Syndicalist. organisation), have one policy relating to the industries of the Dominion. It is based on a class conception, and is stated irt the Alliance constitution as “control of all industries by the workers who operate them.” Jt is' trifling with tho intelligence of the people to say, as tho Labour politicians do, that this is not Bolshevism. It is, beyond question, tho plan which the Bolshevists of Russia put into operation. Mass control of the industries has a certain attraction for Socialist minds. Tho Alliance named “goes tho whole hog” in this matter. The party seeks to approach it by stages, as it has to consider votes. The former would swallow the pig whole and the latter wants to take it in rashers. People must not imagine that either are moderate. They both aim at despoiling the present owners and managers. As an approach to this mass control the Socialist Party referred to places this demand in its platform:— “Where national ownership of an industry is effected, all labour for such industry and at least half the Board oi Control in each case shall be appointed by the union or unions affected.” As a sidelight on this policy of the State and the ultimate taking control of all the industries by the operatives, it is notable that these Socialists and “Industrial Unionists” aro frequently engaged in crippling the very industries they want to see taken over. Whether they think that the price to be paid will he reduced by destroying tho present value, or whether it is mere bad habit arising from their fever of class hatred, is hard to determine. The Aliners’ Union strike against co-opera-tion ; the sticking up of ships at various ports; the claim to work just as they please, no matter how the industry suffers ; these are some recent examples of what the public can look for in mass control of tho industries under union or federation direction. Mr J. R Clynes, the Britisli Labour ALP., says: —“If workmen deliberately reduce the volume of national wealth by lessening the output they reduce their chances of raising the standard oi living.” Air Alex. AL Thompson, editor of the Clarion, in December last, said:—“For seven years up to 1906 they lost three million working days per year by industrial disputes. The next eight years the annual loss was twelve and a half million. During the war the average was four and a half million, but from 1919 to 1924 it was thirty-six million.” Then Air Thompson adds:—“Think of the -waste, tho burden on industry, the effect on essential security of AVe are taxed two or three times more per head than any other nation cn earth, and on top of that we are carrying the handicap of these constantly recurring, ruinous and invariably futile strikes. What good can they do? Whom do they benefit? In defiance ol such advice from their friends, the Red Labourites, both in N.Z. and at Homo, keep on with their destructive work and those most outspoken for “workers’ control” are most disposed to leave little for anybody to control. RUSSIA'S SAD EXPERIENCE.

Russia has had over seven years ol Socialism. From 1917 to the end of 1921 there was so-called “workers’ control.” Works committees and councils had charge of the industries. There were all the conditions advocated by Socialists as cures for poverty. What were the results? The Labour Office ol the League of Nations lias collected and collated the facts. A summary of tho whole question is that “the system lev suited in industrial paralysis and intense human suffering.” Taking the last normal year under capitalism (1913) and the same under “workers’ control” (1921) we find industrial production in tons standing thus: — 1913—Coal, 35,800,000; iron ore, 10.640,000; pig iron, 4,237,000; steel,

4,249.000. 1921—Coal, 38,500,000; iron ore, 144,000; pig iron, 114,000; steel,

316,000. Similar results accrued in other industries. Mass control had to be replaced with one man control to save the people from utter starvation. It is surely time that the Socialists of New Zealand learnt this lesson. Until they become rational the people will do well to protect themselves from the destructive proposals their party puts forward.