LABOUR'S LITTLE QUARRELS

Observer, Volume XXXII, Issue 51, 31 August 1912, Page 2

LABOUR'S LITTLE QUARRELS

About a Union President.

THE contention of the Auckland General Labourers' Union that Mr P. Eraser ought not to be president" of that powerful organisation is a very quaint one. The point of quarrel is that Mr P. Eraser is not a general labourer. It is perhaps a sound contention that in the big forward labour organising move that there should be no men in official positions but those who are engaged in the work which is the living of the men they represent. But there is so much inconsistency in the methods employed by labour that it is strange and significant that there should be any ill-feeling respecting this specific case. Mr Eraser, it is noted, will appeal to the Federation of Labour for protection. That is to say, he assumes that the Federation is powerful enough to induce the Auckland General Labourers' Union to retain him as president.

If it is laid down as a precedent that no officer should hold office in a union or labour organisation who isnot employed at the specific calling he represents, general representation must obviously change. The personnel of the Federation itself would be seriously interfered with. Officers, who it may be assumed are responsible for the Waihi strike and for other labour disturbances, would be given their walking tickets on the excellent ground that their whole time was consumed in organising and agitating. One of the quaintest things done by Labour was in approaching Mr A. Myers to represent Labour in Parliament. The Massey Government was at least charged—before it reached the Treasury benches—with having bid for the brand of Labour, and even Sir Joseph Ward has been hailed with cheers as an exponent of Labour principles.

To prove that Sir Joseph Ward isnot a carpenter, that Mr Myers is not a waterside worker, and that Mr Massey does not earn his living by labouring is hardly necessary. The point is that if Mr P. Eraser has no right tobe president of the Auckland General Labourers' Union, wider representation by outsiders is wrong under the same principle. A while ago, Auckland wanted a Mayor. By some extraordinary process of reasoning, Labour conceived that Mr Hall-Skelton would be a fit and proper Labour Mayor. Obviously to be consistent, Labour shoujd have chosen a union member for the onerous position. For many years Mr D. McLaren has not been a labourer. He should, therefore, if the Auckland General Labourers' Union logic issound, not have been secretary of the Waterside Workers' Union, he . should not have been a Member of Parliament, and he should not now be Mayor of the capital city. To debar him on the same grounds as in the case of Mr Eraser would be to lose the services of a very excellent man.

Mr Eraser may or may not be an excellent president, but if he is excellent, it doesn't matter a bit to the General Labourers whether he is a. labourer or a bank manager. It would be useful to know whether the quarrel is with the fact that the president is not a labourer—or with Mr Fraser personally. If Labour is going to make a hard and fast rule that no man may represent them unless he be a "worker " in the accepted sense, then Labour is inviting many sympathetic labourites to turn their thoughts into otherchannels. If Labour can capture men of superior education with trained minds to do battle for them, they hold' a weapon that is much more powerful' than by eliminating partisans who do not answer to the narrow limit of occupation or calling.

If the Labour Parliament of New South Wales was robbed of the men who are not "workers" in the commonly accepted sense of the word— where would the Labour Parliamentbe ? There could be nothing incongruous about a duke or doctor, a land agent, or a librarian, being an officer of a wharf labourers' union, providing:

ke was heart and soul with it and used his talents (supposing he possessed any) for the union's good. The unfortunate thing about Labour's personal quarrels is that they have a blighting effect on organisation. Labour indeed is frequently its own worst enemy.and should rigorously bottle up its internal quarrels in order to lull the public into the helief that Labour like one man, happy in its unity, is marching along to that great goal when the hated capitalist shall come for his orders to a union president.