LABOUR'S PHILANTHROPY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19086, 3 August 1925, Page 8

LABOUR'S PHILANTHROPY.

A remarkable statement has been sent by the New Zealand Labour Party to the conference of the British Commonwealth of Labour. It is obviously designed to hamper migration from Britain to the Dominion. If that be not its deliberate intention, it is a pointless and useless contribution to the discussion of a topic painfully vital to British workers. Either way, it is as callous a document as was ever penned; but its framers staem to have meant it to dissuade intending emigrants from coming here, rather than to have written it as a mere exercise in inexpensive sympathy. The statement's picture of New Zealand conditions betrays an extravagant love of shadows. "In many of the large cities of the Dominion"— the lavish use- of "many" and "large" is significant of a-desire to create a deep and horrifying impression—housing conditions are said to be disgraceful. Just how many and how large these cities are, in the minds of their defamers, they owe it to New Zealanders to state. It is not fair to leave so much to theiif readers' imagination, here or in Britain. They declare that "acute periodical unemployment" is the rule here—a preciso statement of the acutencss and periodicity would be welcome as a help to investigation. Yet they go on to assert their determination to fight anything that would menace the condition of th«> workers here. Surely, in a land whose housing conditions—in many of its large cities, be it added in Strict care lest injustice be done to this Labour warning—are disgraceful and there is acuto periodical unemployment, the general condition of the workers can hardly be worth such strenuous defence. If things are as black as they are painted, an influx of immigrant workers cannot jnake them seriously worse« Do

not immigrants create work as well as want to do it? They bring a demand for products as well as a wish to share in the work of produc tion. Judged by this Labour state ment, immigrants aro spineless and feckless mendicants, a drain on the country's resources and never by any chance an aid in developing those resources. But the Labour Party, despite its official statement, knows that conditions are by no moans as black as their picture* paints them. The statement, however self-destructive, is meant to keep New Zealand privileges for New Zealand workers. It matters little to them that thero are millions of needy * unemployed in Britain, so long as the Dominion's workers are comfortable. Where is Labour P vaunted universal fraternity 1 It vanishes at the tost of practical philanthropy. Let the workless in Britain Btarve, says the New Zealand Labour Party, rather than be allowed to take a little from the Dominion worker's table. After this. Labour's habitual condemnation of others for wishing to keep good things to themselves can be taken for what it is worth,, and its promise of giving everybody a good time, should it come into political power, can be written down as so much electioneering humbug.