"HIRED SPIES."

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 116, 19 May 1939, Page 9

"HIRED SPIES."

CIVIL SERVANTS' POSITION.

SOCIAL SECURITY REGULATIONS.

The contention that the regulations recently gazetted under the provisions of the Social Security Act tended to reduce every civil servant to the level" of a hired spy was made by Mr. R. M. Algie addressing a meeting in Epsom yesterday under the auspices of the New Zealand Freedom Association.

Mr. Algie quoted section 21, paragraph 6, of the regulations as follows: "If any Government officer has reason to believe that any person is receiving any monetary benefit under the Act to which, by reason of employment or any other circumstances, he is* not legally entitled, or that moneys received under the Act to which, by reason of employment or any other circumstances, he is not legally entitled, or that monevs received under the Act are being misused, it shall be the duty of such officer to communicate the facts to the registrar of the district, and on receipt of such communication the registrar shall take whatever steps are necessary to determine the matter in accordance with the provisions of the Act and these regulations."

There, said Mr. Algie, was an attempt to introduce by Order-in-Couneil, without the prior and direct consideration of Parliament, the beginning of a system which would correspond very closely to the secret police of Germany. Such a type of regulation placed the individual citizen entirely at the mercy of the State, and subordinated liim entirely to its will. If given effect to in its entirety the system would endanger and perhaps undermine the political freedom of the citizen.

In regard to civil servants, Mr. Algie hoped that they would themselves be the loudest in their condemnation of a system that was so utterly and entirely un-British.