THE CASE FOR LABOR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 15080, 1 December 1919, Page 7

THE CASE FOR LABOR.

ITo Iho Editor of the Herald.) Shy— All . true lovers of'truMi and justice will appreciate any' attempt -at throwing more light on the tangled, skein which- has followed "m the wate of the great war, which has just been, brought to a close. While granting this,' no one with any sympathetic appreciation of right can support the attitude of those newspapers and public men who are at the present moment indulging m a tirade of misrepresentation of Labor's principles with a. view to 'damaginc the chances of candidates put forward by the. Labor Party to -contest!, the coming ; elections. Organised labor depends upon the soundness of. its criticism of opponents' principles— or lack of them — backed up by the justice of its own, for i&ppor* at the ballot-box, and with the ojbject of stating the ca&e for Labor an'fl in© justice of its claim, the following 'brief explanation of what they really mean to the peo]se, seeinsto be timely and necessary. All modern t-hjnkers" will agree at once,, that ,by a 'process -of ■"'evolution., industry* is slowly but surely moving towai'ds centralisation. We have com© tip from the cave man , through savagery, . barbai-ism, and the handicraft stage, until we have reached the machine age .with/its natural tendency towards monopoly. Competition is fast disappearing, • The- joint stock company and the titist are with us to a large degree, and it. is for the people to decide whether,, when capital? 'ism, has developed to its highest point, the niachine shall become .the slave of mankind or . mankind continue to be the slave . of the machine.;;, whether the means of production, then monopolised by a comparative few, shall continue to be- under; a state of industrial despotism; or whe'her they Tshnll," m their fully developed state ..-, become public property, to be governed by the people under a system of industrial democracy. Labor's objective is based upon the foregoing assumption, *md the" belief that, as chattel . slavery and serfdom have passed, so also must capitalisms-Lam, etc., . . . . PROGRESS.