The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1917. LABOUR AND THE WAR.

Southland Times, Issue 17938, 1 February 1917, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Ur o. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1917. LABOUR AND THE WAR.

One of the most pleasant features of recent war news has been the attitude adopted by the National Labour Conference in Britain. This conference is one of the greatest events of the industrial year at Home, and its importance has been even greater since the creation of a separate Parliamentary Labour Party. Up to the present the Conference has held itself aloof from the amalgamation of Labour with other political parties, and a considerable amount of uncertainty existed as to the attitude which the Conference would take up in regard to the new Government. Mr Lloyd George, in forming his. Cabinet, apparently had come to an understanding with Labour leaders, and the elevation of several of their most distinguished members to Ministerial rank was an interesting experiment. And it was just a question whether the Labour Conference would endorse this departure from the principles by which they have been guided hitherto. If the Conference had repudiated the right of the Labour Ministers to speak authoritatively for Labour, a severe blow would have been struck at the nation's unity, and Mr Lloyd George's position might indeed have become exceedingly precarious. Fortunately all such apprehensions have been removed, and the approval of the Conference by a majority of over six to one of the inclusion of Labour members in the Ministry is one of the most satisfactory items of news that has been transmitted for some time. Labour at Home, apparently, is determined to do its full share in the great task of winning the war, and its attitude, which means the abandoning of many of their fundamental principles, must be regarded as an indication that the nation's needs have been thoroughly impressed upon the leaders of the party. In no other circumstances than a great national emergency would the Labour Party have adopted the selfsacrificing attitude which it has taken up at this time. The attitude of British workers towards this terrible struggle was admirably expressed by the president of the Conference, Mr Wardle. when he declared that tragic as the war had been a decision on Britain’s part to refrain from intervention would have been still more tragic. The elevated Aone of the debate was still further exemplified by the fine sentiment given expression to by Mr Arthur Henderson, the most prominent of the Labour Ministers. He replied to the

complaint regarding the sacrifice Labour was making by urging the workers to remember that in such circumstances as these “they should concern themselves more with what they gave than with what they got.” There were, of course, those present at the Conference who were greatly concerned at the breach of union rules and the surrender of union privileges, but among the workers as a whole, fortunately for the Empire, a broad conception of the present issue prevailed, and the great majority of the wage-earners are prepared to subordinate the interests of unionism to the needs of the country. Labour at Home appears now to be playing its part in the war nobly, and it will be the duty of the nation to see that after peace is declared Labour Interests do not suffer because of the sacrifices that are now being made so willingly. When the president of the Labour Conference declared that the war was the one great question of the hour, and that victory was the one great object of the nation, he carried the Conference with him, and when an organisation so large and powerful as the Labour interest at Home sinks personal and party interests in order to preserve the country’s greatest strength in the face of the enemy, that party deserves the utmost"consideration when the time comes for laying down the conditions that are to exist between Capital and Labour after the war. It is probable that as the outcome of the happy position that now exists at Home Labour will be given a greater share than ever in the administration of Great Britain, and it is probable that a party which has behaved so admirably during a time of crisis will emerge from the war with brighter prospects than it had before, and with a very solid backing of public sympathy. It is not out of place to commend the attitude of the workers at Home to their confreres in New Zealand. Here there has been no well-thought-out effort to organise the resources of the nation, and we do not suggest that the workers have not done their duty as well as the members of any other class. While huge profits are being made as a direct consequence of the war, and are not being taken by the State in order to pay for the war, it is perhaps only natural that the workers should be dissatisfied, and that they should demand that if there are to be sacrifices they should be shared equally among all classes of the community. It is this feeling that is at the back of the continual demands for higher wages, and it is not improbable that these demands would cease if the gravity of the occasion and the necessity for absolute unity were brought home to the people as a whole by a determined and thorough effort on the part of those in power to organise the resources <sf the country to their fullest extent.