LABOUR PARTY AND FARMERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17283, 6 October 1919, Page 8

LABOUR PARTY AND FARMERS

[BY TfcIBGRAPH. —OWN COERESPONDENT.J KAUKAPAKAPA, Saturday. At the invitation of the local branch of the Farmers' Union and the Men's Club. Mr. T. Bloodworth, president of the_ Federation of Labour, addressed a meeting on Friday evening on the aims of Labour, and how Labour's politics would benefit the farmers. He outlined the Labour platform, and said that farmers and consumers could escape exploitation by extending the co-operative system of buying and selling. Mr. Bloodworth said the policy of the Labour Party was opposed to the single tax. Although the meeting concurred with the speaker on many points, his land policy did not find favour, the chief objections being directed towards the impossibility of fairly assessing the value of the outgoing tenant's improvements. Questioned as to the " go-slow" tactics pursued by the miners, Mr. Bloodworth emphatically laid down that the Labour Party did not stand for strikes or any restriction of output, but was sometimes -forced to adopt these means as a weapon of defence. He said that if the Labour Party had wished to paralyse industry, it could have prevented one ounce of foreign coal from being, brought into the country, by calling a strike of watersiders and transport •workers.