was contrary to the very basis of the Conference. The other reason advanced was that the United Labour Party had used all its influence to prevent Unions sending delegates, but having seen how successful the Conference was, it now wanted to take part. That there was a great deal of truth in this contention there can be no gainsaying, but an additional factor to be remembered is that there were delegates attending the Conference who were tired of the seemingly endless wrangling in the movement, and desired to make a serious attempt to promote complete unity.
Many delegates felt—myself among them—that should the United Labour Party send Professor W. T. Mills to represent that organisation it would disrupt the Conference. This extraordinary little American had attacked the Federation of Labour with much venom. He had opposed it on every hand and had used his pen and voice in opposition to the Waihi miners during that strike. He was regarded by the Federation as a reactionary of the most dangerous type, and to ask men to sit in conference with him whom he had continually assailed seemed to court disaster.
When it became known that Mills had been appointed to attend as a U.L.P. delegate, it came near wrecking the Conference. Men declared that they would not sit with him, and branded him by epithets the reverse to complimentary. However, the Professor was a most adaptable little person, and could adjust himself to his surroundings in a really wonderful fashion, and it is only fair to say that during the Conference he did his best to arrive at a mutually satisfactory basis of unity, and that when Conference concluded he did his utmost to further the decisions arrived at.
62
