AN ADDRESS AT AUCKLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9117, 24 December 1907, Page 1

AN ADDRESS AT AUCKLAND.

TRADES UNIONISM AND SOCIALISM. [Peh Phess Association.] AUCKLAND, December 23. Mr Keir Hardie addressed a wellattended meeting of workers this evening. In the course of his speech, he laid stress on the great advance recently made by the Socialistic Labour movement at Home. The Labour Party aimed at becoming th© supreme power in the State, and would continue to work towards this end. He urged that tho party at Home and in the colonies should work hand in hand and not allow themselves to be separated by any differences of a purely domestic character. He 6poke most hopefully of the future of Socialism, and said that wherever Socialism entered with trades unionism the latter was the stronger for it. At the end. of his speech Mr Hardie answered a number of questitns. One of the questions asked was: "Can Mr Hardie^ say whether the remarks made by him in India were correctly reported in the Press?" Mr Hardie replied by asking: "Can my friend give me any idea what those remarks were?" No more .was said on. the subject. {"From Orra Corkespontdint.] In the course of his address to workers to-night, Mr Hardie said "that the Labour movement at Home had no intention, of really becoming strong enough to hold the balance of power between one party an<l another. The struggle that they had entered, upon, and which they would carry through to the finish, was to make the Labour element supreme in the council of the State. (Applause.) The object of the Labour movement was to weld together the poor down-trodden proletariat with the more or less intellectual middleclass, pnd make of them one great harmonious whole, and so light for the overthrow of the system which was crushing their life. The Socialistic Labour movement in the Old Country to-day stood second to none in any part of the world. Socialism meant making tha useful section of the community masters of the land they tilled and the wealth they created. Whatever other improvements they might effect by the way, there would never be any freedom for the working classes, either at home or abroad, so long as the means of their livelihood was not under their own control. He urged that the Labour party in the colony should work hand in hand with that at Home, a«d not have differences of domestic policy in regard to fiscal oi- other matters to stand in the way of united action. He could not express any opinion as to whether a protective tariff was or was not the best thing in New Zealand, but he was. strongly of opinion that such a tariff

in the Old Country would play into the hands of the landlords and speculative oiasses, and tend to retard the development of the jLabour movement. He wished the Labour movement not only throughout the British Empire, but throughout the whole civilised world, to be bound up into one great federation, fighting for the uplifting of their race. They in the OH Country would do their share of the fighting. They had no trimmers or ( fcime-servere. There was not a man in their party who would not rather fall with the flag flying than win by yielding on© iota of the principles he professed. Referring again to the great socialistic movement in Britain, he said that the infusion of it into trades unionism had given a new strength to the latter. Wherever Socialism was making its way trades unionism was increasing in vigour. H© lioped the , spirit manifested at Home would find an echo all round. "We iare/' he said, " not merely members •of one common stock, but, what was more important, members of the great fraternity of sorrowing, suffering la_,bour, which only the efforts of labour !cffln uplift into a freer life." (Applause.)