THE Waikato Independent. THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1907.

Waikato Independent, Volume V, Issue 322, 10 January 1907, Page 4

THE Waikato Independent. THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1907.

While New Zealand is working out hergreatdestiny.it is interesting to observe how particular factors and conditions which are manifesting themselves here are operating in the Old Land, for what happens there will in all probability be repeated here. Mr Keir Hardie, who is regarded as a high authority and champion of the cause of Labor, has recently given expression to views which are worthy of more than passing consideration. He says .that the sudden upheaval of a great Labor party at the recent Home elections came upon the country as a surprise, but to those leaders who have toiled for 20 years at the task of creating a new party, its coming was neither sudden nor unexpected. He holds that^ a Labor party is the logical and inevitable outcome of a popular suffrage; that it is an outward and visible sign of the determination of the disinherited democracy to have government of the people by the people, and for the people, and so long as the causes which had operated in bringing the Labor Party into being continued, the party would continue to grow. The logic of these facts is confirmed when Mr Hardie says: “ With a session’s experience of the Labor Party behind us, friend and opponent alike admit that it has made its own niche in politics and demonstrated the possibility of such a party existing as a separate political entity. This lifts the question out of the region of speculative theory and transfers it into that of accomplished fact.” The object of those who pioneered and organised the Labor movement at Home was to create a political force which, by concentration on Social and Labor questions, would keep these from being obscured by mere political issues. The Laborites have shown themselves alive to the fact that no party could obtain or retain a footing in British politics if it ignored the wider issues of national life, and in this respect it is claimed the Labor party has not been lacking. Questions of foreign affairs, education, the welfare of subject races, militarism (that sinister foe of progress) and

finances, have all been dealt with by members of the party, whilst the party vote has always been cast on the side of a progressive policy both at Home and abroad. Mr Hardie claims that one powerful aid in strengthening and developing the Labor party is the fact that it is linking up the workers of Great Britain with their comrades of all other lands, and that the British workman is realising as he never realised before the solidarity of Labor and its oneness all the world over. He considers that it would be nothing short of a calamity if Labor party lines were to be so drawn i» Great Britain as to exclude the educated middleclass socialist from becoming a candidate, and that a purely working class movement is apt to be stodgy.' Piecing together known facts, the assumption seems justified that the development of the political Labor movement in Great Britain is only beginning, and that it will ultimately become an openly avowed Socialist movement, its champion entertains no doubt. “ For the first time in the long drawn-out tragedy of the poor,” says the writer referred to, “the toiler has an organ through wdiich he can voice bis demands and win redress for his wrongs. The Labor party can never be sentenced or put down. More and more it will become an increasing influence in the political life and thought of the nation, welding all the useful classes of the community into one democraticallycontrolled whole to do battle for the social and economic emancipation of the people.” In these lands we. have led the way in advanced legislation, and have accomplished much that the Labor party at Home is yet striving after, such as old age pensions, etc. However, the whole movement of Labor is significant, and evidences are not wanting that it is the precursor of an important crisis between the two gieat parties representing Capital and Labor. It is simpler to read the signs of the times in this colony, and safe to prophesy that the time is not far distant when the point as to the supremacy of organised capital versus organised labor must be decided. At the present time organised labor is in the ascendant, and the question to be answered is whether such supremacy is in the highest and best interests of the majority of our people.