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[OZA]| [OZA]| Woman Voter [OZA]| <(October).>

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At the Women's Peace [OZA]| Army meeting held at the Guild Hall, on 22nd Oct. [OZA]| the following resolution was carried with three [OZA]| dissentients:~~ That this meeting of citizens of [OZA]| Melbourne reaffirms its opposition to [OZA]| Conscription, and believes that the time has come [OZA]| for the people of all countries to protect [OZA]| themselves against MILITARISM and CAPITALISM by [OZA]| forming an INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE'S UNION which [OZA]| shall aim at establishing a social and industrial [OZA]| system under which goods shall be produced for use [OZA]| and not for profit; and, further, this meeting [OZA]| believes that a new political party should be [OZA]| formed immediately in Australia, embodying the [OZA]| above ideals, and determined to pursue towards [OZA]| other nations such a policy as will secure to the [OZA]| peoples full and free internal and external [OZA]| development.

Some folks are wondering if it [OZA]| is our intention to form a new political party. [OZA]| Assuredly not. But the events of the past week [OZA]| have disclosed the line of the political cleavage [OZA]| in the Labour Party between the Militarist and [OZA]| anti-Militarist section; twelve members of the [OZA]| Lower House and nine in the Upper voted against [OZA]| the Government, and these, with some few who may [OZA]| come over to them owing to pressure from without, [OZA]| are almost certain to form a new party; the [OZA]| chances are good that a large section of the [OZA]| electors will follow them, and our Guild Hall [OZA]| resolution and the following statement outline the [OZA]| principles which we think should govern such a [OZA]| party.

An opportunity of unparalleled [OZA]| greatness is presented to the militants of the [OZA]| Labour Party; the question is, How will they use [OZA]| it? A continent capable of becoming the national [OZA]| home of 100,000,000 people is in their hands. They [OZA]| find it now under the control of those who have [OZA]| made it a mere appendage of the European system, a [OZA]| system founded on fraud and force, and one which [OZA]| has produced such human agony throughout the ages [OZA]| that the springs of life have been so utterly [OZA]| poisoned as to destroy the desire to live in the [OZA]| heart of mankind.

Starved youth, [OZA]| profitless toil, crushed and dishonoured [OZA]| womanhood, the early grave or wretched old age ~~ [OZA]| these are the common lot, and to this fate future [OZA]| generations in Australia must be condemned unless [OZA]| the chains that bind us to the oppressors are [OZA]| cut.

Up to the present, the war has robbed [OZA]| us of 180,000 of our young men, and fastened upon [OZA]| us a debt of over 100,000,000 pounds a week. And this, [OZA]| without the smallest benefit accruing to the [OZA]| people on whom this shameful wrong has been [OZA]| perpetrated.

The outcome of this war is [OZA]| most likely to be detrimental to the interests of [OZA]| Australia from every point of view. If [OZA]| Constantinople is ultimately held by Russia, and [OZA]| if Japan becomes a controlling influence in the [OZA]| Pacific, the sea power of nations which will prove [OZA]| ultimately more formidable, Germany will be [OZA]| strengthened. The geographical position of Germany [OZA]| makes her purely European, and limits by natural [OZA]| boundaries her activities in the Southern [OZA]| Hemisphere to commercial rather than military [OZA]| pursuits.

With Russia established in [OZA]| Constantinople, and with Japan in control of [OZA]| Southern China there must inevitably come a [OZA]| balancing militarism and navalism in the United [OZA]| States. That has indeed already come, and will in [OZA]| its turn be balanced by a similar movement [OZA]| throughout the British Empire, under the disguise [OZA]| of Empire unity and defence.

The trade war [OZA]| which will follow the cessation of hostilities [OZA]| will have one certain result, namely, a great [OZA]| stimulation of producing without a corresponding [OZA]| rise in the consuming power of the peoples, and [OZA]| the consequent struggle for markets will be [OZA]| enforced by the huge armaments of the competitors. [OZA]| With this we may expect a stout challenge of [OZA]| British seapower, consequent on the losing of our [OZA]| vast Empire against the trade and enterprise of [OZA]| the rest of the world.

Increased [OZA]| armaments, the slavery of militarism, can be the [OZA]| only outcome of this policy. Mr. Hughes is here in [OZA]| Australia as representing the Imperial Party. He [OZA]| intends to give us over to them with all we have, [OZA]| body and soul, to do as they will with us ~~ and [OZA]| what they will do is readily answered by looking [OZA]| at the conditions of the English people. A large [OZA]| section of the Labour Party are prepared to go [OZA]| with him all the way except to Conscription. They [OZA]| have no views as to the future of Australia that [OZA]| are not those of the Reactionary Parties of [OZA]| England, Russia, France and Italy. While declining [OZA]| Conscription for Australia, they support with all [OZA]| their hearts and with all their might a war which [OZA]| is being fought by conscripts torn from their [OZA]| homes, and by boys of 18 years of age, and by [OZA]| those of their own countrymen who are the [OZA]| conscripts of hunger today, or were deceived into [OZA]| enlisting by specious talk about [OZA]| and a

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When the Allies are ready to stop, these [OZA]| Australian politicians will be ready to stop too, [OZA]| and will accept the peace terms as they accepted [OZA]| the war ~~ in dumb stupidity.

What, then, [OZA]| is this new ANTI-CONSCRIPTIONIST PARTY going to [OZA]| do?

Is it going to tie Australia up to the [OZA]| English Unionist Party, which now predominates in [OZA]| the Cabinet, and allows us to become pawns in the [OZA]| game of Imperialism? Is it going to pledge our [OZA]| manhood, not only for another Imperialistic war, [OZA]| but to quell the national aspirations of the [OZA]| subject races within the Empire?

Is it [OZA]| going to pledge Australia to the Paris Conference [OZA]| resolutions, which can only be carried out by [OZA]| force, and which will drive the United States into [OZA]| an attitude of hostility towards us?

What [OZA]| Australia wants is a political party with an [OZA]| enlightened foreign policy ~~ aimed at gaining for [OZA]| her friends amongst the people of the world.

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It is not the business of a Labour Government [OZA]| to back by force the Capitalistic enterprise of [OZA]| exploiters, and our only commercial relations with [OZA]| foreign countries should be to arrange on a [OZA]| friendly basis an interchange of products. To join [OZA]| in a raid upon China or upon any other undeveloped [OZA]| land, or to assist in crippling the livelihood of [OZA]| the workers in other countries by such measures as [OZA]| the Paris Conference provides is nothing short of [OZA]| criminal folly.

The undeveloped state of [OZA]| this Continent is, without question, its greatest [OZA]| danger. It is a standing temptation for [OZA]| capitalists to attempt to secure the introduction [OZA]| of cheap labour, and to acquire great interests [OZA]| here, through which they will control us and work [OZA]| our destruction. We want a party which will [OZA]| undertake this development for the people of [OZA]| Australia, and give the people what is the only [OZA]| real freedom ~~ the power to control their own [OZA]| economic life.

We are now at the parting of [OZA]| the ways. Are we to go down to the ruin prepared [OZA]| for us, or fight our way out into safety? It is [OZA]| only required for Australia to declare herself [OZA]| neutral in European politics, and to invite the [OZA]| co-operation of the world in building up here a [OZA]| new nation, founded on the eternal principles of [OZA]| justice, and the people who sweat and groan in [OZA]| agony in the old world will never permit their [OZA]| Governments to harm us. It is because we permit [OZA]| ourselves to be an instrument of harm to them that [OZA]| we need to fear them.

The answer to Mr. [OZA]| Hughes' Imperial Conscriptionist demand is the [OZA]| complete self-government and neutrality of [OZA]| Australia in regard to war. To remain a docile and [OZA]| unquestioning part of a military Empire is to [OZA]| become its militaristic appendage, dragged at the [OZA]| tail of its economic Imperialism.

Let [OZA]| Australia lead the British Empire from Militarism [OZA]| and Navalism to Justice and Freedom.

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