THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1928. LABOUR IN CONFERENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20380, 11 April 1928, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1928. LABOUR IN CONFERENCE.

The delegates attending the annual Conference of tho New Zealand Labour Party will doubtless, from the stirring periods of their president’s address, have derived encouragement in the “ stupendous task,” ns lie calls it, that confronts them. Mr Semple had always an aptitude for bold and picturesque language, and, while Time may have mellowed his outlook to some extent, the weapon of invective is still one which he uses with peculiar confidence. The Conference would have been disappointed, indeed,, had he not administered to it tho stimulus of a thorough-going and full-flavoured denunciation of the forces which Labour elects to regard as hostile to itself. That the rank and file of Labour should be content to be fed year in and year out upon this sort of platform fare is something of a mystery —perhaps it is partly a matter of habit—but tho fact remains that abuse of somebody else is preeminently the stcck-in-trade of tho spokesmen for Labour. Mr Semple seems to have covered the okf ground sufficiently well in his address. The immediate objective of the New Zealand Labour Party is set forth by him in the usual sententious terms, and includes tho pious aspiration of the “ winning of New Zeeland for the useful people.” The niceness of the differentiation will bo noted. Presumably the “ useful people ” comprise that section of the population which is represented at tho Labour Party Conference. The rest, by implication, are dismissed with contempt. Is it thus that the Labour Party hopes to commend itself to a majority of the people? Mr. Semple has been more anxious to illuminate the sins, as ho discerns them, of the Government than to expound the virtues of his own party. No great effort was perhaps required for tho recapitulation with sufficient vehemence of the more or less familiar monologue. But it would be a most unpopular Government the credit of which was weakened by his criticism. It is to bo apprehended that the artillery at the Labour Party’s command is somewhat feeble. Humour wo scarcely expect from a Labour platform, but Mr Semple’s confident prediction that the historian of the future will identify the Coates Government as “ tho greatest gang of political incompetents that ever occupied the Treasury benches of the Dominion ” is distinctly diverting. The Conference would hardly need Mr Semple’s assurances on such points as the responsibility of tho Government for unemployment, for the inflated values of land and tho consequent unfortunate experience of many settlers, and for the lowering to “ seim-starva-tion ” of tho standard of living of those engaged on relief works by the treatment they receive in tho matter ot wages. The attempt to make capital out of such things to tho detriment of the Government is based very little on reason and very much on prejudice and exaggeration. Unemployment among teachers and the overcrowding of schools—or classes—arouse Mr Semple to righteous indignation. Possibly he would have the Government add another million or so to its already high educational expenditure, and would not dream of charging it with extravagance. » No more money for education and yet £1 000,000 for the Singapore base" is the burden of his withering indictment. But the ideas prevalent among members of tho political Labour Party on Singapore and “ tho creation of a military machine,” and generally on tho question of defence, are not necessarily a whit the more sound because of their monotonous reiteration. There is still only one practical method of ensuring security for the Empire and its component parts, and New Zealand is not yet so far advanced as to bo able with a dear conscience to follow the advice of Labour leaders and leave the task entirely to the other nations of the British Commonwealth. Of course a speech from the President of the Labour Party would be incomplete without an attack upon tho wicked capitalistic press of tho Dominion, and the value of his soft impeachment will be justly appreciated in the quarter most concerned.