[PW] English spelling beyond US and UK

[Ray Cotsell]

Peter Macinnis speculates, on the spelling of "Labor" in the name of the 
Australian Labor Party, that it may have been due to the Irish influence in 
the australian labour movement, rather than to the influence of the 
[US-born] King O'Malley:

I can claim to have at one time studied Australian labour history. My books 
from those years are currently in boxes, so this is from memory (and I can't 
promise this isn't folklore): The spelling "Labor" was in fact an accident.

When a meeting was held in 1900/01 to formalise the creation of an 
Australian labour party, quite properly, minutes were taken. Although the 
motion proposed a name with the conventional spelling of "labour" the minute 
taker wrote it down as "labor". The error was later noticed, but regarded as 
too trivial to make an issue of: documents were already being printed, and 
there were more important issues to discuss. Indeed it might even help to 
point up the difference between the new party and the parties beholden to 
the [British] bosses.

Ray Cotsell

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