THE LABOUR PARTY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 108, 6 April 1934, Page 3

THE LABOUR PARTY.

BUSINESS AT CONFERENCE. l’er Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, April 5. Tliat organisations of relief workers would be welcomed into the Labour Party was a decision reached at the annual conference of the party to-day. It was also agreed that the party would welcome into membership individual relief workers and all unemployed workers who believed in the policy and work of the party. , Members were urged "to attcnci meetings of unemployed and to assist them in securing the remov il of injustices and the investigation of grievances. A proposal to have the constitution pf the party amended to provide that a candidate for Parliament should have

been a member of tbc Labour Party for I three years, instead of at least two years, as at present, was defeated. | A motion was carried directing the j executive of the Labour Party and Par- j liamentary members to secure as full a | statement as possible of the receipts i and expenditure of the Unemployment. Board and tbc subsidies paid by the. board to private firms. t Another remit condemned the admin- j : istration of the Unemployment Act, es-| j pecially the action of the Government! I in ignoring the provisions providing • i for sustenance payments. j | Other remits asked for the raising of i ; the compulsory school-leaving age to 15 j j years; the abolition of relief work and, : the employment of men at present ] worklcss on productive and developmen- j tal work at standard rates of pay for 6 .' hours a day and 35 hours a week, and : I the abolition of subsidy payments to J other than public authorities. *

It was also decided that the party take every constitutional means tc secure an early' election, before next November if possible. The Douglas social credit movement was discussed. The principles of the theory were not discussed, and some of the speakers did not accept the theory', but it was stated that there was nothing antagonistic to the Labour Party in Major Douglas’s analysis of the existing monetary system. Unless the Douglas social credit movement became a political party and nominated candidates for Parliament it was not considered that advocacy of the system should be a bar to membership of tlie Labour Party.