A Political report.

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane February 24, 1894

Political.

In calling your attention to the political phase of the Labour movement, in which the A.L.F. has taken a most important part, I am pleased to report a wonderful progress during the year. As you will recollect, the last annual session of the General Council took place some short time before the late general elections. The report then submitted stated that the times were favourable to the return

of straight Labour candidates to Parliament. This opinion, as events have since proved, was correct. A synopsis of the votes cast at the general election shows: For straight Labour, 21,063; for independent Labour, 5534; Independents, 14,068; Opposition, 6060; and for Ministerialists 32,112. This voting, under our present iniquitous electoral laws, I submit augurs exceeding well for the future, which is further emphasised by the return at the only bye-election of Mr. Anthony Ogden, a straight Labour man, over a Ministerial candidate by an over whelming majority.

And this, too, in an electorate that at present has as its representative a Cabinet Minister. We regret that two seats occupied by Labour men during the last Parliament were lost at the general elections – namely, Bundamba and Bundaberg, represented by Messrs. Thos. Glassey and G.J. Hall respectively. But when it is recollected that in the last Parliament the Labour party consisted of only four members, whilst in the present the number has risen to sixteen, there is cause for much felicitation and for believing that the Labour Party has come to stay. The imperative necessity of increasing the number of Labour representatives until they form a majority of the members of Parliament is very generally recognised, so that in the interests of the whole community the true laws which should govern the distribution and production of wealth may be enacted. During the last session of Parliament the conduct and actions of the representatives of Labour in the Legislature were closely and anxiously watched, and it is pleasing to record the fact that in their independence and intellectuality the Labour Party as a whole compares more than favourably with any other like number of men in the House.

This is something to be proud of, particularly when one understands the power and privileges that Capitalism – always ready to entrap the unwary – can place at the disposal of its willing servants. We may feel assured, therefore, now that the party has had some experience of Parliamentary procedure it will become even more assertive, and when the House again meets the introduction by the party of urgent Labour Reforms will be eagerly looked for. So far as the Australian Labour Federation is concerned in the matter of politics, opposing critics must at least give it the credit of being the principal medium by which both Labour in Politics and its necessary adjunct, Labour in Journalism, have been so forcibly brought to the front in Queensland. Through the medium of the A.L.F. the Worker was made possible, and through the Worker the masses have been educated to a sense of their political rights and responsibilities. This much has been done in the past; for the future let us regard it assist by every possible means in augmenting the strength of the Labour Party, doing all we can to keep it intact and free from the demoralising and corrupting influences of all other political parties.