FEDERATED LABOUR.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12751, 24 March 1910, Page 4

FEDERATED LABOUR.

ADDRESS BY MR.. McLAREN, .M.P,

(Special to "The CJolonist.")

Christchurch, March 23. In his campaign for the creation of a federation of labour for the whole of New Zealand, and the organisation of an. independent political labour party, Mr D. McLaren, M.P., addressed a meeting of railway and goods" shed workers at mid-day to-day. The power of combination was the keynote of i>tr McLaren's address. ' The battle of organisation between employers and workers since the passing of the Arbitration Act, he- said, might be likened to a game of cards. The engjloyees' had played workers' unions and the employers had replied with unions of employers. The employees had played councils of labour and industrial councils, and 'had been met with industrial federations, and finally emploj'ers associations. "We stopped Jn the game then," he said, "and that was whero we were -beaten. The employers did not stop; they played one card that has auchred us up till now, and that was the creation of one New Zealand Federation of Employers. It has given them enormous power and strength that the employees do not possess. We hear of a New Zealand labour party, v but we have'never had in. any true senße a labour -party, and we should recognise candidly that that is the position. We haye held conflicting views, and the. daily papers, being mostly comic journals, have taken fulL advantage of them, but I am not dismayed by the humour v of the papers, and can do a littlo bit on^my own occasionally. We. have,, however, thrown ourselves open to ridicule by our weakness, and the elements allowed to enter I into the movement. We taught the I employers to organise in the first m--1 stance, but they have, beaten ns at our own game," said Mr McLaren. He added that the employers had their interests looked after by their own organisation industrially, politically, and administratively. The workers must therefore have a large combination, and the proposal he was setting before ladour bodies was to federate the trades unions, industrial federations, and councils of labour into one executive federation, which would convene congresses of workers annually to dictate its policy from timeto time. Possession was not merely nine points of the law : it was the whole of the law in this instance. The.federation he proposed was the entering into possesssion by the working classes of the rightsi they possessed in tho. socialisation of capital, and he reminded them that in New Zealand the working man had political rights which were possessed- by the people of very few countries indeed, and for Hi ich the worker^ in some count;* *r 'i-3ay "■ere . giving their lives. A vote of ■thanks was accorded to the speaker.