COUNCIL OF ACTION

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160736, 24 August 1920, Page 7

COUNCIL OF ACTION

INDEPENDENT LA BOOB’S PKOTKST (Special Correspondent). WELLINGTON. August 23. The Official Labour Party’s endorsement of the policy of the Council of Action set tip by the extremists of the Labour Party at Home has drawn a protest from Mr IV. A. Yeitch, Mr S. G. Smith, and Mr E. Kellett which is likely to have far-reaching results in New Zealand, even if it does not exercise any restraining influence upon militant Labour in'the Old Country. The three Independent Labour members of the Hojs; of Representatives have addressed a cablegram to the Mr W. Adamson, the chairman of the recent United Labour Conference in London, pointing out that the members of the House, Mr H. E. Holland and Ins colleagues, who have endorsed the policy of the Council of Action represent only a minority of the unions, and are ;n no way qualified or authorised to speak on behalf of the workers of the Dominion. LABOUR REPRESENTATION, Presumably the protest of the Independent Labour members of the House will be given tlio same publicity at Home as the Council of Action has been careful to give the message of tho Official Labour Party, but, whether this is so or not, the incident will bring into strong relief the great gulf that lies between the constitutional and the revolutionary representatives of Labour. Of course Mr Yeitch and his associates are quite justified in claiming that they, not Mr Holland and his colleagues, represent the political sentiment and aspirations of the great majority of the worker's, but the fact has not been hammered home as persistently as it ought to have been. Now, however, the public has brief epitomes of the aims and attitudes of constitutional and revolutionary Labour side by side, and it may weigh their merits for itself.

REFORM JOURNAL’S YIEW. Auckland’s Reform journal, the N.Z. Herald, lias the following, which' will prove of interest, to our readers: AN UNFORTUNATE CABLE. It is significant that of all the members of the House Mr Veitch, himself thoroughly .representative of a Labour constituency,, should have bceif the one to propose that the Chamber should dissociate itself by resolution from the cablegram sent to the Council of Action in the name of New Zealand Labour. It is because Mr Yeitch is a true friend of Labour that he takes so serious a view of a message which approves direct action on a purely political issue and which endorses a challenge to Parliamentary government. And whether the official Labour Party recognises it or not, it is a serious matter that, speaking quite unwarrantably on behalf of New Zealand Labour, it should have U“nL eminent. There is no room in one country for a Council of Action and for representative institutions. The dictation of ji. minority is the negation of democracy, and any Parliament which permits any such self-constituted rival ns a Council of Action to hold the field is certain to fail into well-merited contempt. The issue raised by the incident is as simple as it is profound, namely, whether a Parliament elected by the whole people is to rule or power is to be usurped by a minority representing only one class. That is the question which the Bolsheviks have answered in their own favour in Russia, and the official Labour Party of New Zealand by its cable to the Council of Action has expressed at least a. theoretical preference for Sovietism against Parliamentary institutions. The issue is all the graver because it has been raised by powerful representatives of organised Labour, such as the Trades Union Congress, the Labour Party, and the Parliamentary Labour Party, or at least by their accredited leaders. It is all the more desirable that the New Zealand Parliament should raise its voice for constitutionalism, and the fact that two of its members have signed the cable to the Council of Action gives it every right to do so.