UNDER FIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1927, Page 11

UNDER FIRE.

RAILWAYMEN'S SECRETARY, j INNER HISTORY OF STRIKE?" Jj ' : j MR. McARLEY'S EXPLANATION. !' J I 5 (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) j £ WELLINGTON, this day. I [ A serious controversy which threat- | c ?ned the disruption of the New Zealand i ] Engineers', Firemen's and Cleaners' As-' < sociation has been arbitrated on by Mr.' j E. Tage, S.M. It concerns the relation- | ; ship between Mr. \Y. McArlcv, seere- ; ; 1 I ( tary of the organisation, am* i-ertaiD f members of the executive council. j The main point in uispute is the j relative authority of the general secre- i tary and the president. A proposal was j made that Mr. McArley be grand presi- , 1 dent of the organisation. This was hotly j J opposed by Mr. L. Carroll, who holds the ! ' presidential position, though it is con- j tended by a section of the association's members that he is debarred under its j rules from holding that post, owing to j a recent change in his railway oecupa- j i tion. j ; Before the dispute was referred to j arbitration some of the trouble was re- i , fleeted in the organisation's journay, the ] . latest issue of which contains the sec- ' . retary's reply to numerous criticisms. One was that when the Amalgamated : Society of Railway Servants declared the j . strike on the railways in 19:24. Mr. j McArley scuttled away to Australia. He ; shows that he made a health trip with ; the concurrence of the association's j president. j Mr. McArlev's explanation throws an 1 interesting light on the inner history of : the strike. He states that before leaving for Australia he, knowing of the strike rumours, took the precaution of seeing ; the Minister of Railways the night ; liefore his departure, and received an j assurance that the members of his as- ! sociation would not be called on to work if the A.S.R.S. men went on strike, as | the Minister did not wish one section j pitted against another. As events devel- I oped, the locomotive men remained at i work an \ the strike was defeated. j Mr. McArley's explanation continues: "I have been told that instructions were sent from the railway head oflice that : the Greymouth men were to be tried out, | and from what I have learned since, i this seems correct. The Greymouth men , complained after the strike that they could not get any reply to their telecrams. except 'Do your work, no more and no less.' I am confident that had I j been here there would not have been any trains run, and neither would Greymouth have been tried out, as. being I situated the way they were, they would have had special attention from me." | i