THANKS TO LANG!

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 525, 6 August 1932, Page 15

THANKS TO LANG!

Wreck of Federal Labour Party. SENATOR BARNES’S COMMENTS. (Special to the ** Star.”) SYDNEY, July 26. “ We have to thank the Lang Party in New South Wales,” said Senator Barnes, president, at the annual meeting of the Victoria-Riverina branch of the Australian Workers’ Union, “for the wreckage of the Scullin Government and of the Federal Labour Party.

‘‘lncidentally, in the process of wrecking the Federal Party, they also wrecked their own party in New South Wales.” Senator Barnes said it was deplorable that any section of the Labour movement should carry its 'feud to the extent of displacing a Labour Government and replacing it by the enemies of Labour. Yet that was what the Lang group in the Federal House had done, and their action had had its reflex in the State elections in Victoria and New South Wales. He was not discussing the merits or demerits of the Lang Plan. There were arguments in its favour, but no set of men in one State had a right to set themselves up as dictators to the whole movement.

“ The Labour movement can only succeed when it learns to march like an army, and when every member of it is prepared to übmit to discipline,” proceeded Senator Barnes. "No party can hope to succeed when it goes to the polls with half a dozen different battle cries, and half a dozen varying policies. “ Labour will surely rise again, and if our recent defeats have inculcated the lesson of discipline, solidarity and sacrifice, we will soon be able to achieve that unity which is the first essential to success.”

Senator Barnes was speaking on a motion congratulating the Queensland Labour Party on its victory and expressing a desire for unity.