The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1910. LABOR REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2740, 19 February 1910, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1910. LABOR REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT.

A few weeks ago a London cable announced the decision of the House of Lords that it is illegal for trade unions to maintain out of their funds Members of Parliament to represent their interests and to be subject to the conditions imposed by the unions. According to details which have come to hand by mail this decision, which is naturally of vital importance to English Unionists, was unanimously agreed to and the point has been settled on authority that cannot be questioned. The ground taken by most of the judges is that the levy is ultra vires inconsistent with, that is, or not contained in the statutory powers given to trade unions. Lord Shaw, in his interesting judgment, took wider ground. It is the constitution -of the Labor party which is, in his view, fundamentally illegal.

It is, he says, a violation of sound public policy. It seeks to bind the .Parliamentary discretion of representatives to make a contract whereby a Member of Parliament pledges himself to place his vote and action into subjection not to his own convictions, but to the decisions of an extraneous body. Such arrangements, whether made by Labor organisations or capital combinations, aye, in Lord Shaw’s view, illegal, being not compatible either with the spirit of our Parliamentary constitution or with the freedom 'which is the very basis of representative government. Some words which Lord Shaw used in this connection are well worth careful consideration: — It needed jlittle imagination to figure the peril in which parliamentary government would stand if, either by the purchase of single votes or by subsidies' for regular support, the public well-being were liable to •betrayal at the command or for the advantage of particular individuals or classes. ■,

In our view Lord Shaw’s contention is absolutely sound, and it strikes at one of the greatest evils' in Labor representation as we find it in Australia and to a lesser extent in this Dominion. When a member is returned to Parliament be should take bis seat with the intention of representing to the best of his ability the legitimate interests of all sections of the community. So soon as lie accepts the dictation of a party representing special interests he degrades the office he holds and lowers his own manhood. A.t the same time it must not be supposed

that Unionists are the only sinners in

this respect. The London “Daily News” .points out that

“The effect is to deprive the working classes of this country of the most effective means of doing (precisely

what is done by every other class. It is notorious that the Liberal, Conservative, and. Nationalist parties exist because of the party fund which pays the expenses of candidates and of running tho party machine. It is equally notorious that through the party fund a control is exerted over Liberal, Conservative, and Nationalist members quite as stringent as anything the Labor pledge was devised to effect.”

It is scarcely likely that any serious effort will be made to have the law amended so as to legalise the class of payments that have been found to be illegal, but it is probable that the remedy will bo sought in an agitation for the (payment of all members of the House of Commons by the State. Meantime Labor members will be maintained in Parliament by voluntary contributions from the members of the Unions.