LABOUR IDEALS.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 1437, 10 December 1919, Page 5

LABOUR IDEALS.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—A Labour ideal is a combination of the workers of all the world (not any one section or any one people, but all people), to put a stop to the curse of war. Our brothers who think that way are held up to ridicule as pacifists. Christ, also, was a pacifist. Him they crucified, For the saviours of humanty there is the scourge of thistles; for the tyrants and exploiters a croAvn. Is it then that the pacifists are always wrong; the militarists always right? Shall the A'oice of Labour idealism always be shouted down by the truculent mob clamour for Barrabas? These be extremists these Labour advocates; so also were Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and all true, wise souls that ever took flesh. But the truth is mighty, and will prevail. The light glimmers on the mountain tops, soon to be a mighty beacon. — I am, etc., A WOMAN. Peilding, December 9. MR GALLICHAN’S LETTER. (To the Editor.) Sir,—“ Did the farmer and genuine worker shirk?” asks Mr Gallichan. No, sir; but through the eager blundering of Sir James Allen enormously more men were taken out of the farms and Avorkshops than the occasion necessitated. Through this we sent thousands of men who ne\ - er saw the war at all. But let Mr Gallichan not forget this: There were one hundred more appeals for exemptions to the military tribunals from the farms than from the flaxmills and workshops. This was partly because all concerned realised the peril to production into which the mad infatuation of the militarists was leading the country, and partly because many of the well-to-do farmers grudged the sacrifice of their sons, some of whom Avere just plain shirkers. If the small farmer who provides the raAV material, and the wage-earner who makes the raw material into commodities haA r e not everything in common, then Mr Ayrton is Avrong, and Mr Gallichan right, but I don’t think so.—l am, etc., LOOKER-ON.