LABOUR'S WAY.

Northern Advocate, 22 August 1924, Page 4

LABOUR'S WAY.

The political methods of the Labour Party are mentioned again to-day in a letter from Mr. John M. Steedman, one portion of which is worth brief study. "Labour says their members must be representatives," Mr. Steedman declares. "A representative is someone who represents the people and who takes his instructions from the people he represents. If he takes no instructions from those whom he claims to represent he is not n representative. He is simply going there as a dictator on his own terms, and that is an unthinkable position." Mr. .Steedman adopts the familiar device of begging the question. Of course a representative should be one who represents the people and takes his instructions from those whom he represents. But the whole point is that Labour members of Parliament in this country do not actually represent the people; they represent a section, and they are tied hand and foot by the oligarchy that controls the politics of that section. Labour preaches a class war. Is that representing the people? Certainly not. The whole theory and method of Labour politics is representation of a section of the people, and a section that does not consider the rest of the people. If our Parliamentary system realised its ideal we should not send mon to Parliament to represent sectional interests nor to be controlled by a party dictatorship, as the Labour

members are. Every member would be free to use Ins brain power for the good of his country, not of a section; he would vote on every question submitted to him as his conscience dictat-

Ed, trying to do justice to all. Fortunately the Labour Party is the only party that devotes all its attention to the interests of one section of the community and absolutely commands the votes of its representatives under all circumstances.