THE LABOUR PARTY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19904, 14 September 1934, Page 13

THE LABOUR PARTY

To the Editor of “ The Timaru Herald " Sir, —Your correspondent “Social Control” makes no apology for the long time his letter has taken to appear. The trick of waiting until a discussion is forgotten before submitting a letter, is so old and so well-known, that it would scarcely be performed by a schoolboy. Some time ago, “Social Control” brought forward a lengthy quotation from Mr Sydney James Webb, to support the British Labour Party; but in these letters, proof was given to show why evidence from Mr Webb could not be taken. “His dismissal of Mr Webb as a mere Member of Parliament,” now says your correspondent, “simply shows how narrow and constricted his choice of literature has been.” Such accusations are, of course, very funny, but unfortunately for your correspondent, they prove nothing. Your correspondent is guilty of twisting the reason given for Mr Webb’s dismissal. Mr Webb’s evidence was not dismissed because he was “a mere Member of Parliament,” but his evidence was dismissed because he was a Labour Member of Parliament. The lengthy details about Mr Webb’s career as given in your correspondent’s letter, together with additional details, can be quite conveniently found in “Who’s Who.” The details do not alter the fact that Mr Webb, as a confirmed Labourite, would do his best to excuse the utter failure of the British Labour Party—and it is quite evident that Mr Webb tried to gloss his picture of that failure. In the same way—as pointed out before—Stalin would excuse Bolshevism, Mr Lang would excuse the Lang branch of the various conflicting branches of Australian Socialism, and Hitler would excuse Nazism. But, as ordinary intelligent human beings, we do not swallow those excuses. Few people will childishly write “it is true” [as your correspondent has written, | because, few people will swallow such I excuses with such simplicity. If the gloss is removed from Mr Webb’s picture of the British Labour Party’s failure, the outline largely agrees with the reasons offered by those prominent members of the British Labour Party j who with sadness, discovered that the Party was nothing more than froth and bubble. And your correspondent I has given no reasons to show why the

opinions expressed by those members should be renounced in favour of the excuses proffered by Mr Webb. That the British Labour Party broke Into factions, Mr Webb admits; and the Party broke into factions because its members gradually realised that they could not keep their gullible votecatching promises—promises exactly like those being made by the New Zealand Socialists at the present time. “The case in question,” says your correspondent, “is—Why did the Labour Government in Britain fall.” Above are the reasons why the British Socialists fell, and largely, they are also the reasons why the New Zealand Socialists would fall. Apart from the questions that Mr Carr did not answer, the failings of the New Zealand Socialists are the chief case receiving treatment in these letters. But of course, your correspondent has avoided the chief case. He even states that he is not writing on behalf of the Labour Party. Evidently, your correspondent is afraid to write on behalf of the New Zealand Labour Party. Evidently, a morsel of common sense prevents him from being obliged to explain and defend a policy which can neither be explained nor defended; a policy which is nothing more than gullible vote-catching socialistic flapdoodle. If your correspondent possesses that restraining morsel of common sense, he is to be heartily congratulated. In conclusion, reference must be made to the reply Mrs M. E. Garland gave to the discourtesy offered to her by “Social Control.” Mrs Garland said that she had never written in defence of the Labour Party. No doubt now, after the discourtesy she has received, Mrs Garland would not defend the Labour Party. Mrs Garland originally wrote to defend Mr Clyde Carr, and such a defence was tantamount to defending the Labour Party, because, to the socialistic aims of the Labour Party, idr Carr is said to be bound by a definite pledge.—l am., etc., CONSISTENT. Timaru, September 10. P.S.—Your correspondent avoids an

explanation for the way the members of the New Zealand Labour Party so freely sing foreign national anthems and the Revolutionary Socialists’ battle song. Patriotism is, he says, the refuge of rogues. Certainly, the people in this Dominion, the most patriotic Dominion in the British Empire, will be amused to learn that their intense patriotism causes a Labour supporter to regard them as “rogues.”—C.