Bennett v. Mills.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 42, 22 December 1911, Page 9

Bennett v. Mills.

The Debate at Auckland.

IMPRESSIONS AND SUMMARY BY OUR REPRESENTATIVE.

The third round in this debate took place in. the Choral Hall, Auckland, on December 8. Mr F. G. Ewington very ably presided. The hall was crowded long before the debate commenced, and the roar of applause that greeted the disputants when thy appeared on the plattfbrm clearly indicated that both men had many supporters present. and that they were .-keenly interested in the matter under dispute.

As was only to be expected under the circumstances, the duel was a sharp one, both speakers being somewhat bitter in their remarks. In my opinions Mills lost the best, as well as the last chance he will have of regaining, or perhaps I should say gaining, the respect of the Auckland Socialists and of many hundreds of people who are not directly connected with either Socialist Party or Labor Party. The affair of the letter which Mills was supposed to have sent to Bennett, and which , , it has since transpired, was never sent, was mentioned early in the debate by Bennett. Had Mills been the man some of us once thought him to be he Avould have apologised to Bennett for his action before the people who had heard him bo bitterly attack Bennett- Instead of this, however, Mills explained that the letter was left to his secretary, and that that gentleman failed to locate Bennett, and therefore Bennett never received the letter. The explanation does not satisfy, and even it it did as far as the letter itself is concerned, it certainly does not justify Mills in his cowardly behaviour in attacking Bennett as he did that Sunday afternoon in the Opera House. He and he alone was responsible for that. He may shift the blame for the letter on to other people, but he was the man who said Bennett would be branded as a sneak aiid a scoundrel if he failed to appear, and he (Mills) is the coward who failed to apologise for having said that. He, however. is the loser by his action. Bennett has ably and amply vindicated himself.

Bennett led the debate, aim m opening stated that to debate upon the unity scheme was like flogging dead horses. Mills claimed that his proposed organisation was the only one that made provision for real Industrial Unionism in New Zealand. Bennett, in his half-hour speech, fully analysed the scheme, and ridiculed the idea or its being an-industrial union with-a Socialist objective whilst it allowed lawyers uuu clergymen within it, and also whilst its supporters could be at election times fighting on the political field for single taxers, prohibitionists, etc., as well .as getting the support of Liberals and Tones. Mills tried to Justify the admission of the clcrgj,. t>i savin" that whilst he as a prohibitionist had no need of brewery employees, yet so long as the community as a whole needed them, they . should be admitted into the industrial ™Hm. Bennett, he said, had no use foi the clergyman, and yet there were thousands in the community who did need the clergy, and so long as that was so they should be admitted into the industrial union in a flock of their own kind of birds. The comparison, or course, was a poor one, and only a man who felt himself in a dangerous position would have made it, for whilst everyone knows the brewery employees are engaged in industry, everyone also knows that the parson is not engaged in industry, and by no stretch of imagination can his calling be called an industry,. and therefore he can nave no place in a sound industrial union. Mills made much of Ms old idea of getting together to do the things we all want done, and said that Bennett wanted to wait for Kingdom Come before w-e did anything.

Bennett referred to this, and rebuked the Professor very soundly for sneorino- at Socialism by referring to it as Kingdom Come. Hβ went on to say that although Mills affirmed that his scheme contained all the essentials to Industrial Unionism, yet he had absolutely failed m all three of the debates to prove that the scheme did contain these essentials.

Mills, in his last speech, tried hard to show that his scheme really did work for Industrial Unionism. He dealt with its one or two good points, points which it must have in order to justify, in however small a degree, its being put forward as an industrial organisation at all. If he had made his fast speech first, then perhaps he might have done good, but as it was he did not get to the real points of the debate until it was too late for them to be debated, which seems to indicate that he was afraid of their being handled by the representative of tne New Zealand Federation of •Labor. One cannot help feeling sorry for the few followers of Mills who remain faithful. Their chief objection to the N Z F L has been, its revolutionary character and yet here we had their beloved patron, the little man who had aaved them from revolution, claiming that his scheme was the more revolutionary of the twol Also, there are some amongst the Mills-ites who, whilst in all sincerity "backing his scheme as members oi the Trades and Labor Council, yet absolutely deny that they are in any way connected with the Labor Party, <and here we had the little schemer boastinff that the unity party were in no small measure responsible for those votes Truly, these followers of Malls are in more than one instance between A. scene of wild enthusiasm followed the debate. Bennett's supporters

stormed the platform, and carried him shoulder high around, and inisisted on shaking bands with him and with each other; Avhilst a very much smaller, but perhaps none the less sincere, group gathered round the Professor, but whether they congratulated him on what they thought to be his success, or condoled with him on what they knew to be his and their absolute defeat as 'unity schemers, I am unable to say. The chairman said, in conclusion, that it was one of the finest debates ever hoard in Auckland. And I am more than prepared to agree with him.—TOM BLOODWORTH.