CORRESPONDENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3370, 9 November 1911, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE “LIBERAL” PARTY AND THE WORKERS.

[TO THE EMTOK.j Sir,—lt will be a great pity if Gisborne does not succeed m putting _ a Labor candidate in the field for the coining election. In otlici parts o' New Zealand the Labor party is recognised as being the only party whoso candidates are pledged to a definite platform—a platform in which the planks are so economically and. socially sound that no effective hostile criticism has been made. In fact, the now Reform party' whose leaders have looked wisely into the future, bias adopted most of the ideals of the Labor party —the only outstanding difference being that whereas the Labor Party believes in State ownership of land along with all other natural gifts to man, the Reform party believes that a. limited freehold tenure will best secure the affection of the people for the country. The idea that the Labor party consists only of those workers who toil with their hands is rapidly giving place to a much wider conception of the possibilities of the party. In America it is becoming more and more manifest that the huge money combinations will ultimately divide society absolutely into only two classes —the wealthy and the poor. There will he no room for the fairly well-to-do middle class trades’ people and farmers of to-dav. They will have either to become millionaires by successful financial operations, or j oin the ranks of the poletariat. Ihe squeezing out process is going on today even in New Zealand. Ihe pi ice of 'bread is controlled absolutely by the N.Z. Flourmillers’ Association, and a combine of the master bakers. . Likewise, the price of meat is practically under the control of one large combination, which sends all our best meat to London and gives the local consumers only that which is not fit for export. In spite of the best being exported, New Zealand meat is cheaper retail in London than in New Zealand generally. . Everybody knows how the ring that controls jNgw Z o*B, bind butter loblxKi the defenceless householders during the past winter. That is just a. little indication of what the trusts will do as their power grows. These Trusts and these abuses have absolutely grown up under the fostering care of the present “Liberal” Government, and some individual members have not been above taking ,paid-up interests in some of these financial concessions. America- is finding out the danger, and is trying to stop it by putting the clock back twenty years. The Government wants to return to the competitive system; but that is not progress. It is already a fact known to economists that a combination known, as a trust produces more efficiently and more cheaply than a large number of small competing concerns, so that it is irrational to go back to the competing concerns and destroy these wonderful combinations which can produce so cheaply and so well What to do with them is the problem —fiow to profit. by their efficiency and cheapness, and yet escape the slavery of their domination is what politicians of the near future will have to discover.

That is the goal of the Labor parti. That is the summation of its aims and objects —the solution of the present difficulty in the relation between labor and capital and the introduction of permanent industrial peace. Really the “Liberal” .Government ot to-day has been conservative all along. It prides itself on its Labor legislation, on its humanitarian laws, but it has in fact been driven to introduce every one of these laws by the Labor party, which has. in tlie past, been the cat that has pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for it. Now, those who depend upon their work for their living—the farmer, tbe lawyer, the doctor, the tradespeople, and" many others, as well as those engaged to work for direct wages —ire directly interested in seeing that the class of legislation which appeals to the collective intelligence of the community, and which makes for the contentment and welfare of those, have to go to work, is the legislation which is passed. They all want progress right along the line —they don’t want an effete organisation which requires the goad of self-interest to make it do a little of its duty. They know now how little tbe Government has done.for the workers, except under compulsion, and they know how every useful piece of Labor legislation has * been forced upon He Government by the Trades and Labor Councils or the Labor Congresses. Failing a Labor candidate for Gisborne pledged to the ticket, the workers will be serving themselves and the cause of humanity by voting for ihe Reform party’s platform, in spite of its freehold plank, rather than He shifty crowd that has fooled it for the past fifteen years. —I am, etc., JAMES GORDON CLU NY.