LABOUR AND THE WAR

Otago Witness, Issue 3333, 30 January 1918, Page 17

LABOUR AND THE WAR

CONGRESS AT NOTTINGHAM. (By Cable.) The annual Conference of the Labour party, was opened at Nottingham on Wednesday, the 23rd inst. One thousand delegates attended and the gathering is regarded as one of the most important in the history of the movement. Mr Purdy, in his presidential address said : Peace by negotiation while Germany occupies foreign territory would mean a German victory. If Germany will not accept President Wilson's and Mr Lloyd George's terms, we must fight on. Germany then could no longer claim to be fighting a defensive war. There is not yet a sign that the enemy are willing to accept Mr Lloyd George's, President Wilson's, and Labour's principles. Would the German democracy define its war aims and face the Government as the British democracy had faced its Government? The way is open to Germany if the German people and Government sincerely desire a just peace. A peace agreement uncier present, conditions would mean fastening militarism stronger on the people of Germany and the peoples of the British Empire and the world. We must have:a clean peace; if it be obtainable only by fighting, we must go on fighting to the end. Mr Huysman. secretary of the International Socialist Bureau, said that if the -moderate democratic war aims of the Labour party were presented to an international Labour conference, then the AustroGerman Labour party would be compelled to declare its war aims, and if a general agreement transpired fighting would be paralysed. Mr Henderson moved a resolution welcoming Mr Lloyd George's and President Wilson's war aims statements so far as they harmonised with Labour aims, and requesting the Allies to formulate their aims at the earliest moment possible, in order that they might be juxtaposed with a similar statement which the democracies of enemy countries would be requested to make. The resolution was carried practically unanimously.. The Conference shelved the resolution demanding the withdrawal of laborites from the Government, and rejected by a majority of two to one a proposal that the labourites in the Government should cease to act on the labour executive. There were exciting scenes during the discussion on the resolution condemning the Labour Ministers, Messrs Brace, Barnes, Hodge, Parker, and Roberts, for supporting the Government in fixing the agricultural minimum wage at 25s a week, as against the Labour amendment for 30s. The resolution was carried with an overwhelming majority. The C«?>f3j-er.'ce carried a motion demanding the withdrawal of the Military Service Acts immediately after the war and favouring the conscription of wealth in order to pay war expenses. A resolution "was also passed urging the Government to view with grave danger the world famine, to establish equality of rood distrfifcfitaft, to eliminate pronto/ring,

J nnd to insist on equality of sacrifice from j sill classes. j The new Labour constitution was re- | ferred back by the Nottingham Congress ! at the. instance of the minors and textile j trades, whose delegates explained that they ! wcr.-e not hostile to the constitution's prinI ciplos, but felt that the unions required j time for full reconsideration. I M. Rcnaudel, French Socialist,, in- ] formed the Labour Conference that ' arrangements had been made for eonven- | ing a -conference of the Labour Socialist ! parties of the various countries for February 17 for the purpose of arriving at ! an agreement regarding war aims on ther British Labour lines. A BOLSHEVIK AMBASSADOR. A meeting in connection with the Not* tingham Labour Conference accorded Lit* vindoff, the Bolshevik's Governments Ambassador, a tremendous reception. The latter denied' that the Bolsheviks had ■ usurped power in Russia like a band aCconspirators. If they had been merely a 1& of adventurers they would have been swept away long ago by the people. More hisi tory, he declared, had been made at Brestj Litovsk than during the whole three years \of the. war. He did not believe that the | German people would continue to shed | blood for the benefit of capitalists. The j Russian revolution was a revolution against war. If peace did result from the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, then a revolution in Germany would come withia the bounds of immediate possibility. MR HENDERSON'S CIRCULAR, Mr Arthur Henderson has cix'cularised the Labour delegates at Nottingham, setting forth the war aims upon which-British Labour, in his view, should insist if it is to supply the Government with half a million more men. He now demanded that ! these aims should include the repudiation of annexations or indemnities, post-war trade boycotts, and any sort of militarism in the settlement; but a demand should ba made for the reparation of the wrongs of nations and individuals. He adds : "Labour stands, to-day, as always, for the absolute freedom and integrity of Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro, and Rumania, for the establishment of a league of nations, and for international disarmament. All Socialist parties in Europe now agree with the Bolsheviks: so does President Wilson's published statement. THE SOCIALIST. Sir George Cave, Home Secretary, replying to Mr Trevelyan in Parliament, said that the police raided the premises of tha I British Socialist party, and seized leaflets . intended for distribution at the Labour Conference at Nottingham.. These leaflets I contained the party's views on Labour's I policy and a message from the Bolshevik j emissary Litvinoff. This leaflet contained I statements calculated to lead to civil strife, ! and also contained a gross misrepresenta- ' tion of. the British Government's attitude j towards the Russian people. The Government, he said, were considering the ques- [ tion of instituting a prosecution: Ha denied that any person claiming to represent a foreign Government was at liberty to engage in propaganda in this country. THE ENGINEERS. Sir Auckland Geddes, in the House of Commons, said he emphatically refused to negotiate with the engineers separately, and mentioned that there were other negotiations for a combing-out of industries. He was opposed to a hole-and-corner conference. All the unions had participated in the 1916 agreement.