Page:"Red"·Fed·Memoirs-Hickey-1925.pdf/35

 from us. Something more than eloquence was required to command respect—there must be knowledge as well, and that of the right order. Another characteristic of the Federations’sFederation’s [sic] leading spirits was their sobriety. Whilst retaining a wholesome contempt for what is commonly known as “wowserism,” nevertheless these men were most temperate. Most of them were non-smokers, a goodly number of them were non-drinkers, and those who did take a “spot” confined their imbibing to “bobs in” or “West Coasters,” as the delegates from other parts of N.Z. termed them. In all the conferences I attended I never remember seeing a delegate under the influence of liquor.

Certain fundamental principles were insisted upon at all times. These can briefly be described as our insistence upon the failure of craft unionism; our insistence that compulsory arbitration was a crippling influence, and must be destroyed; and our general emphasising of the fact that the future of the working-class was wrapped up in themselves—that it was from them and them alone that any real advance could come. In short, we preached a doctrine of self-reliance, a policy to which the Labour Movement of to-day could, with advantage, revert.

Politically, we were inclined, if the truth must be told, to sit on the fence. Our policy in this connection was never very clearly defined. It is true that the Greymouth Conference referred to the need of independent political action on the part of the working-class, and at a subsequent date certain “demands” were adopted indicating what legislative enactments were considered necessary to make