LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18224, 18 October 1922, Page 9

LABOUR IN AUSTRALIA.

THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS. A BOUT PREDICTED. SENSE VERSUS STUPIDITY.. [BY TELEGB.U>H.—SPSCIAJj BETOETER] WELLINGTON. Tuesday. The opinion that the forces opposed to Labour in Australia will triumph in all the States at the Federal elections on December 16 was expressed by the Hon. G. R. W. McDonald, c/i New South Wales, who arrived by the Tahiti yesterday on a business viiiit to the Dominion. " The Labour Party, as now constituted, and au controlled by the political organisations, appears," he said, " to be hopelessly out of touch with the public opinion of Australian people. The remnants of the party still exist, and cla;m that they are necessary to the welfare of the Australian workers, but the depression of the last few years and the awakening of the economic sense of the average worker, which has resulted . from the unemployment attending the ' cessation of industry and the general re--1 adjustment of economic conditions since 1 the war, have produced a period of intro- ; spection as far as the worker is concerned. In spite of the promulgation of ' go-slow ' . and other pernicious doctrines preached by the alleged apostles of progress, tho ' worker has come to realise that he is a necessary cog in the economic machine, ; and that the value of his industry is based, not upon tho conditions that his ' leaders would like to attain in his own 1 country, but on the competition created 1 by standards that obtain in other coun- ' tries. He has begun to realise, too, that ■ the amount of work available for him is ' exactly what can be provided by the ' capitalist vieing with nis competitors in other parts of the world. ! " Theoretically the arguments of the 1 extremists are mentally attractive to him, 1 but have been proven to afford little k comfort to an empty stomach. The * closing of the big steel works at_ Newcastle arose solely through economic con- ' ditions, and the shutting down of many ' of tho large mines of Australia, owing to ' their inability to producc at prices near " the level of their competitors in tho ■ world's markets, has definitely convinced i the worker that his vision required ad- > justing. Realities, facts, and figures con- ■ front the employers, and the workers aro 5 beginning to appreciate them in their true • significance. i " The fact that the workers have now ■ abandoned the views put forward by • their leader!! is demonstrated by the ac- • tion of the miners in South Australia in j returning to work under a big reduction of wages agreed on with the companies. ! The shearing, sheds of Queensland,_ New : South Wales, and parts of Victoria are in full swing under an award of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, in spite cf the excited efforts, of the moving_ spirits in the Australian Workers' Union to exact higher rates and extravagant working conditions. i ' Last week the South Coast colliery ► proprietors were threatened with a strike i on one day each week unless they . yielded to the miners' demands for the 1 immediate installation of patent electrio l lamps which experiments had proven costly and unsatisfactory, and . while anxious to meet the miners in regard to their claims under this head* the pro--0 prietors hsid no option but to continue r ' the present system until a better one was definitely ascertained. If the one--1 day strike was insisted on the proprietors, ,f in turn,'said it could be extended to tho i whole week. Tho'mines wera closed,_ anci e after a. lapse of several days the miners a were compelled to intimate that they * were .prepared to return to work unP conditionally. The proprietors do not .a acclaim this as a victory* over unionism, but simply a triumph of. common sensa ,4 over stupidity. , , 1 "In view of the general attitude to;j ward political Labour in Australia," said Mr. McDonald, in conclusion, " the euc- * cess of the parties opposed to extremism i is assured in every State." v*. *