How Labour is Labour?

But firstly, in its own terms, how has Labour been faring? The electoral disaster of November 29 is still fresh in the mind. The result was a combination of factors. National's vote increased little to 39% of the electorate, whilst Labour's support slumped, much of it to the low turnout. The Labour Party has long claimed to be part of the Labour movement. It seems members of that movement are having doubts about the association.

The Party has moved a long way from its early days when it was seen as the political wing of a Federation of Labour struggling to smash capitalism. Militant unions then, after their defeats in the 1912 and 1913 strikes, realised they did not have the strength to take on the Government in an outright fight. In the Unity Conference of 1916 it decided to push for its aims (which centred around "socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange") through Parliament.

If the road to Hell is paved with good intention, the Labour's road to power was paved with discarded policies. Nationalisation of land was dropped in 1931, and the 1935 manifesto pledged not "abolition of the wages system" but to take up where Seddon had left off. Michael Joseph Savage campaigned not as the working class's friendly uncle but as everyone's friendly uncle.

For all that, the Government of 1935 had many members who had been through the mill, and strong ideals, if the socialism had become pale. The changes made by that Government were many. The two most important were the "welfare state" and a system of import controls, which would protect New Zealand industries and hence guarantee workers jobs.

Many of the Government's actions, particularly after Fraser became Prime Minister, were at best questionable (see the earlier articles on the Second World War in Salient no's 5 and 6). But the major steps of import controls and the welfare state provided the basis (along with good export prices) for the prosperity and relative equality of the 1945-65 period. They were a significant victory for the working class of this country. Significantly, they were also in the interests of industrial capital. A contented workforce in a stable economy is obviously a profitable workforce.

From the large successes of the 1938 election, the Labour Party went steadily downhill. It lost seats, it lost members and at times it lost interest. Most importantly, imbued with the great ideology that the state is neutral and stands above classes, it lost contact with the labour movement. The persecution of the Public Service Association in 1947 and the deregistration of the Auckland carpenters Union in 1948 were political blunders of the first order.