BRITISH LABOUR PARTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 78

BRITISH LABOUR PARTY.

(Feoji Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 20. Mr J- Keir Hardie M.P., was the chief speaker ac a Socialist demonstration,, held at Hammersmith on Sunday evening. He said that nowadays the Labour party was accepted as a matter of course by Liberals and Tories. " The point I wish to make," he said, "is: You may criticise the I.L.P. and its methods, you may disagree profoundly with its tactics, but jou cannot deny its success. We have accomplished half the work — and the moot difficult half of the work— we set out to accomplish, namely, to unite the working olasees, to take them from the Liberals and from the Tories, and to unite them under their own flag, to work out their own salvation. The Labour party to-day is a thing to be resuected, because it is a thing to be feared. I know it is fashionable in some quarters to seek to belittle the strength and tho influences of the party, but if \ou want testimony of its etrengh go to the Anti-Socialist League. MORE TIME FOR PROPAGANDA WORK. " This is the first opportunity T have had of speaking in public about the I.L.P. conference a>t Edinburgh. 1 want 1o assure my comrades and friends that, while I have resigned from my official position in the 1.L.P., I have resigned nothing eke. There is too much of my life in the old I.L.P. for me to give it up lightly. I am not of the official type, for one thing, and am very glad, therefore, to be free. " So far as the propaganda work is concerned, so far as furthering the party is concerned, the only difference it will* make will be that I shall have more time now for the platform than I have had in the past. There is going to be no split in the I.L.P.'"— (Cheers.) Mr Keir Hardie quoted from Mr Blatcbford's writings in the current number o! the- Clarion. In one of those extracts Mr Blatchford said: "The comparative failure of the Labour representatives in the House of Commons is due to the fact that they are working 1 men. . . . With on© or two naitural aristocrats to lead them aU would be well." Stand or fall, Mr Hardie stood by his own class to lead their own movement. "If they had a Socialist party in -the House :jf Commons to-day, with Hyndman at its head, they would be beating a tin can at the tail of the Jingo procession, calling out for war with Germany and universal military training. Those who want Soai-aliam have one clear duty before them — the strength of the Labour party for all their wftirk-'-