LABOUR IN PARLIAMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19218, 8 July 1924, Page 8

LABOUR IN PARLIAMENT.

TRADE UNION CONTROL*. With its rise to Parliamentary power, the Ikritish Labour Party is learning lessons similar to those which have been torced upon the corresponding party in Australia. Writing in the “J'.ngiish Review” on' “Trades Unionism and Political Power,” Mr J. U. Lockhart says tliat the Labour leaders and representatives are in a most embarrassing position. The ordinary member of Parliament owes allegiance to his party and to his constituency. Rut the Labour member has another body to whom ho must dolor, a body far more suspicious and exacting than any constituency or political organisation. He is the servant of a union. The union has made him, and can break him. Let him oppose the wish of the union, and he is finished. His political career is cnd»d, and he drops back .as a private into the ranks of Labour.

Nor aro liis masters easy to please. The district branch of a union is the homo of tho extremist. It is dominated by the organising delegate, a paid official whoso chief duty in life is to extract concessions from employers ana to prevent concesions from the workpeople. He is a necessary part of tho Labour organisation ;his position on tho efficiency with which he maintains his brief. He never meets the employer except for purposes of controversy; and, as a rule, lie has not the responsibility for negotiating a settlement when a dispute has become critical. As a result he almost always belongs to tho extreme section of the Labour Party, and ho divides his time between suggesting impossible policies to his union and urging his representatives in Parliament to agitate for their realisations. At present he exercises a disproportionate influence in the Labour Party. Even Mr Thomas cannot afford altogether to forget tho National Union of Railway-men, and Mr Clynes must pay some attention to his General Workers. There arc some leaders of Labour who recognise the responsibility of their position,'’ and, at the risk of unpopularity, preach sanity to their followers; but there aro few, if any, who in time of crisis will not choose tho way of concession, or at least of compromise. In its lack of real leadership lies the danger of the Labour movement.