REFORM OR DEFORM

NZ Truth, Issue 946, 12 January 1924, Page 4

REFORM OR DEFORM

WHERE THE DANGER LIES. Labor would run a botttr rao« if not Inoculated with the Moscow dope. It 31 IS There are three parties m politics— those who want to stand still, those who want to mend society, those who want to end it. :: s: s: If these three parties can be accurately named, their names are: (1) Reactionary; (2) Constitutional Progressive; (3) Revolutionary. The Reactionaries and. the Revolutionaries are both wreckers. The main difference between them is that the Revolutionaries are wreckers- with - intent. s; t: :: The great bulk of electoral thought m any English -speaking democracy is along constitutional progressive lines. The genius of the British race is both progressive and constitutional. . t: t: :: But the stand-patters and gobackers of the Reactionary group have so repelled moderate voters that many of these latter have been driven reluctantly into supporting political candidates tinged with the Revolutionary color. : : t : : t That is why it is correct to regard the Reactionaries as involuntary wreckers. They unpopular!** constitutionalism, and, by a process of repulsion, they poll votes for the Revolutionaries. t: i: :s The wrecking methods of the Revolutionaries are of a different order. | They are part of a deliberate plan. :s tt t: i Since the wreckers' purpose is to | end the present social order and not i to mend it, it follows of necessity that a Labor Ministry sincerely and sue- | oessf ully striving to mend the system along constitutional progressive llneß would be anathema to the wreckerseven more so than an equivalent Liberal Ministry would be. :: :: :t The fact that constitutional politicians and camouflaged anarchists may co-exist within a Labor Party does not mitigate, but intensifies, tho bitter division between the two. :: :: :: It is this line of cleavage— often papered over, sometimes comented, I never welded — that causes tho chronic I divisions m political Labor organisations. » i: :: t: The Moscow direction to the political wreckers of all countries Is to whlte-ant tho Labor organisations— to get Inside them and kill their constitutionalism. In other words, to make them a living lie. tt tt tt To th« degree that a minority of ender* can hamstring a majority of menders. Moscow's mlstlonarlea m the Lubor movement are performing their purpose. :: it '.t The Riga correspondent of "The Timon" reports that Bovlct inner olrclt'J ant more afraid of a Labor Minis*

try than of a Conservative, .or; a Liberal Ministry m- Britain,' preferring- that Labor should attain power by revolution rather than by constitutional pro- ] cess, and fearing 1 that the British Labor politicians are not sufficiently class-consoious. J» ii ••»»■' It does not need the authority of a "Times" correspondent -to show that m proportion a£ progressive- constitutionalism is served by a ; class-uncon-scious Labor Ministry, the Moscow Wrecking campaign is disserved. :: v If man of the dynes-Henderson type hold the British Labor movement during the next ten years, without being fprced into extremism by threats of expulsion on the Australian model, Moscow Revolutionaries will tntss a long-played-for opportunity. :: :: :j How, then, can they be expected to regard with any enthusiasm the prospect of Clynes, Henderson, and Co. forming a progressive Labor Ministry that may, by its economic success, lower the class barrier and reunite the middle and lower class progressives on a common platform? :: ' it t: It is quite within the bounds of poli-tical-economic possibility that the most democratic elements In Liberalism might join hands with the moßt democratic elements m Labor and form the best Government attainable m the United Kingdom. »: it :: But that would be the worst thing that could happen from the point of view of the wreckers, and the revolutionary party m Moscow would be a fool (which it is not) if it thought otherwise. t: v ■ " »i • Jn English-speaking countries there Is but one political destiny — a higher and purer democracy. tJ it :: To this goal there are two roads. One road is a constitutional Labor party, sometimes m office. The other road is a Revolutionary party, sometimes gaining the upper hand. :: i: • ; : Nothing is more certain than that a real experience of revolutlonarles-in-power would drive a British community back to democratic Government. But that would bo a painful, oontly, and bloody way of renewing our faith m democracy. ■; s: s: " a Is it not better for all concerned to keep the democratic path right through, since any departure from It means a more or loss belated and battered return ? t :: .. :: v % ■■' i* What the Labor Party and the country can accept as certain Is the persistence of the wreckers— of the party that Is for ending andnot for mending. :: n it To the wreckers the mender will never be anything less than an enemy, and the Labor mender will never be anything bottor than a scab, n :.* :i Moscow knows exactly where It is going, because Moscow Is n dictatorship. Do tho Labor debating eoclttles of the British Empire know whore they «r« going? It In there that th# danger lurk*.