The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1911. LABOUR IN POLITICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 81, 18 November 1911, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1911. LABOUR IN POLITICS.

In the course, of an article dealing especially with labour in politics and the stand being taken by labour in this present election, the Wellington “Post” places a . position before the country •which-'it -is very apt t.o’'over-; look. Our contemporary remark?: We believe, that the New Zealand Labour Party is in too great a hurry to reach the Eldorado of-many a dreamer. Fancy, fondly fed with rosy hope, •lias flown ahead of common-sense, and the public lags, behind in comfortable doubt. We do not believe that Independent Labour will capture many seats liext month, but it is plain that Independent Labour’s strengv-h outside of the new Parliament will not be a negligible quantity. Labour has determined to take a road separate from the route of the Ward Liberals and the Massey Liberals. A new Radical Party is forming, and it is possible that Wardism and Musseyism may be side issues within five years. It is to be a struggle of Radicals against non-Radicals, the world-old struggle. The now Parliament, however, will be nearly all composed of Wardites and Masseyites, however variously Government Liberals and Oilposition Liberals may now label themselves. Independent Labour will have only a corner in the House, and who will deny that Independent Labour is not entitled to at least a corner? We believe that New Zealanders in the main admit the justice of proportional representation, and on this principle Independent Labour’s army is numerous enough to have the right to have its case officially presented on the lloor of the people's Mouse of Representatives. . . We had once hoped that the leaders of this party, ‘profiting by the lesson of reverses at the polls, would abandon their project of withdrawing from the Libcral-and-Labour alliance, but they ■ire determined to go their own way, and the movement has to he recognised as a serious one. In the past three years Independent Labour has boon at great pains and at great expense to convince New Zealand that it is a respectable entity, and thougli New Zealand is not yet willing to put that party in power, New Zealand iias to give its advocates a fair hearing-

CHINA’S UPHEAVAL. I lie upheaval in China may ho said u) difior from its predecessors in many respects. For 1 one thing it lias the ooncfit of modern communications, an advantage denied to previous outbreaks. ’l'hose fully conversant with China and its internal questions have no hesitation in asserting that the present rising is the gravest and most formidable there has been in that strange country. The excellence of its central organisation, as well as the sympathetic sporadic outbreaks there have been, from Amoy to Pekin, and even across to the Burmese border, are all indicative of national revolt, of millions of people stirred by in agitation that acts throughout the overcrowded land. If tiie Chinese ire not representatively “up” now.

they arc going further in that direction than over before. The rebels’ more than conciliatory behaviour to foreigners is also very notable, and compares strikingly with the wild violence of the Taiping and Boxer revolts. Probably their leaders recognise the danger of exciting foreign hostility in a campaign which has to be conducted along the zanks ef a navigable river, but that they were

able to exact obedience from their followers proves what excellent discipline and practical devotion is behind the rebellion. Government was relying on the northern army which was being sent down to the Yangtszc. Probably this would be largely composed of Manchu soldiers who used to constitute the real lighting strength of the army, though in recent years the Chinese troops have exceded them both in numbers and efficiency. That army, however, has been powerless to stem the revolt or even to resist its appeal to the patriotic soldier to change sides and it would seem that the more soldiers the Government sends to the front the greater is the danger of augmenting the rebel forces.