THE OPPOSITION AND THE SYNDICALISTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15821, 21 July 1913, Page 4

THE OPPOSITION AND THE SYNDICALISTS.

Apparently it is hoped by the autiMinisterial press throughout the country that the majority of the supporters of Mr Hannan in tho Grey contest on Thursday last will record their votes in the second ballot this week in favour of the Social Democratic candidate. It has been discovered by the Opposition that after all Mr Webb is really progressive in his •tiews and that the propamine he offers should appeal more strongly to Opposition voters than the Government's programme, even although it has been asserted by members of the Opposition in Parliament that Mr Massey is wearing borrowed plumes and that the policy he enunciates is nothing more nor leas than that of the Continuous Ministry! The discovery that Mr Webb's opinions harmonise with those, of the Opposition has been somewhat belated, and yet in the end it was made with amazing suddenness, It seems to have been precipitated by the result ot tlie polling last week. When tho Opposition supposed that it would be with Mr Hannan and not with Mr Michel that Mr Webb would have to fight out the second ballot, one of the journals that support it in Greymouth had nothing too severe ''to say about tho Social Democratic party. Thus, on Thursday last, the morning of the polling, .the Grey River Argus said:

As for the Social Democratic candidate, wo assume that not ono of those wiio luve escaped being inoculated by me vu'us of Souiahsm will vow lor one 01 tlie most unreasoning, selfish, and tyrannical cowbmations mat a trco country could be cursed with—a combination that aspires to dominate society in t'uo interests ot a claas that in their turn support a parasitic class, which Dr Robertson, of Sydney, describes as " a new race ot officials specially . educated to sccat the so-catiwi grievances that had been called into being to create the perpetual unrest and extravagant demands caused through tho union mwi." It is 'impossible to hope ior a cessation of tlie prevailing industrial unrest so long as Labour continues to subsidise servants to beoome its masters and sow the seeds of the degrading and pernicious doctrine that employers and employees are natural enemies fixed by tlie laws of creation.

Twenty-lour hours later, in its comments on the result of the polling at the first ballot, the 6ame paper said it had ,little doubt that "a reactionary feeling" would give Mr Webb "a handsome majority"' over Mr Michel at the second ballot, and. -with this prospect it expressed unclouded satisfaction:

The election of Mr Webb will have the effect of adding one more to the Labour contingent in Parliament, which is the proper and the only placo in which consolidated Labour should seek redress for any and all of its alleged grievances and ■ disabilities. . . . When in Parliament he will be enabled to acquire some practical knowledge of the responsibilities of administrations and the difficulty of hold- • ing the scales of justice with an impartial hand between diverse social interests. Practically every other Opposition journal in the dominion has in like fashion taken Mr Webb under its sheltering wing. What makes this the more curious is that he is the representative of an organisation that is repudiated by the United Labour party with which the Opposition entertains somo hope of an alliance. It is to be regretted that sectarian feeling 6eems to have come into play in the Grey contest, 'and there is some possibility that it may affect the issue on Thursday next. There is a strong Roman Catholic vote in the constituency and the effort is being made to swing this against Mr Michel at the second ballot. Whether the effort will be successful or not the polling this week will show. If it is successful, however, it will be in spite of the warnings which the heads of the Roman Oatholic Church have issued against Socialism ajid Syndicalism. Cardinal Archbishop Bourne, of Westminster, has declared, in a reasoned address, that the proposals of the Syndicalists " seem to strike at the root of those conceptions of public order and of national safety and. of patriotism which axe deep down in the hearts of the vast majority of mankind," and he has expressed a clear conviction that " Syndicalism is a Utopia in no way consonant with common sense or the teachings of oconomic history.'' In our own country, moreover, Archbishop Redwood has, in. a pastoral letter, described "scientific ex moderate Socialism " as '' the deadly .foe

of Christianity and human society." If, therefore, the Roman Catholic electors of Grey, in their disappointment over the defeat of one of their own number, give their support to Mr Webb, they will bo voting for a man who represents a type o{ thought that has been condemned by; high authorities in their own church.