The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1927. CIVIL SERVANTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 128, 2 June 1927, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1927. CIVIL SERVANTS.

For the catiM that lack* atittonce, For the wrong that need* reeutattetf. For the future in the distance. And the good that we earn do,

The debate on the Trade Union Bill, which is now moving slowly through its Committee stages, has brought out in clear relief the special responsibilities and rights which attach to the status of civil servants. A clause in the Bill forbids public employees to join outside trade unions, and lays down the principle that any organisation which civil servants form in own interest must remain entirely independent of any external union or industrial federation. The clause was subjected to vigorous criticism by Labour members, but it was eventually passed with the help of the guillotine. It cannot be said that the arguments which Labour seems to have advanced are at all impressive or convincing. Mr. Ammon, who is, generally speaking,,well-informed on Labour matters, committed himself to the statement that "no Civil Service in any part of the world imposed such an embargo." Yet he might be expected to know that in New Zealand civil servants are forbidden to belong to outside Labour organisations, and that attempts made at various times to affiliate bodies of Government employees to the Alliance of Labour have'been officially checked.

The reason for this policy is sufficiently obvious. The efficient conduct of the public services is a matter of vital importance to the whole community. The Government employees to whom these heavy responsibilities are entrusted enjoy certain privileges, such as permanent employment and superannuation, which are assumed to compensate them for anything that they may lose by their exclusion from ordinary unions. But both in theory and in practice it is impossible to administer the affairs of the country successfully if at any moment civil servants may be called upon to join in a strike, sympathetic or otherwise, directed by some irresponsible external authority.

The attempt to represent such a prohibition as bureaucratic tyranny, or a needless encroachment upon the rights and liberties of civil servants, thus breaks down completely. The principle laid down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that "the Civil Service ought not to be allowed to become entangled in party politics," is sound simply because it assumes that the true purpose of legislation is to promote the general welfare. And the same arguments apply to the criticism of the next clause of the Trade Union Bill which Labonr members assailed.

This clause forbids any public authority to insist upon membership of a trade union as qualification for employment. An attempt was made to raise the "preference to unionists" cry,, but without success. As we have often pointed out, "preference to unionists" is enforced in this country not to propitiate the unions, but to facilitate the working of the Arbitration system. Where there are no Arbitration Courts or Wages Boards, the chief argument in favour of preference fails. Just as it is desirable in the public interest to dissociate civil servants from trade unionism, so it is advisable to prevent local bodies from being drawn into the vortex of industrial strife by confining the employment they have to offer solely to members of Labour organisations. Trade unions have important and legitimate functions to perform, but the interests of the wage-earners will not be promoted by involving either State departments or municipalities, through their employees,' in endless and probably disastrous industrial disputes.