The Post and Telegraph Ballot.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17430, 15 April 1922, Page 10

The Post and Telegraph Ballot.

Our morning contemporary assumes the character of apologist for the decision, of a majority of the members of the Post and Telegraph Officers' Association to affiliate with the Alliance of Labour, an organisation which admittedly relies, for the securing of its objects, on direct action, and aims at the acquisition of the control of State and private industries by the workers engaged therein. In a previous reference to this matter our contemporary mildly condemned the Association's action, which it described as having, "all the " appearances of an act of intimidation," and remarked that the Government's plans to reduce expenditure in the Public Service had been "made cm a mod- " erate and merciful basis" and "ought "to bo accepted in the right spirit." Its latest comment on this subject suggests, however, that, responding to protesting representations by its Labour friend;:, it realises that it -went too far in its previous remarks. It could not bless what it had already condemned, but it could at least put forward excuses for a decision which it admits has aroused a of apprehension," positive among the business community and probable among the general public. It first of all expresses an emphatic opinion that Mr ,'Massey should have told the members of the Association before the ballot, instead of after it, that the Government would not consent to affiliation. It is, of course, easy to he wise after the event, but even il; the Prime Minister had expected that the ballot would result in favour of affiliation —an opinion shared'by no other member of the general public-—it is extremely unlikely that he would have anything so foolish as to lihrow down a direct challenge to the Association and thereby harden up tho forces 'arrayed against the State. In the nest place, l the Liberal critic expresses doybt whether the reductions in pay which it previously treated as having inspired the Association's decision, account for the "expression of resentment" conveyed by that decision. It knows now—or has been told—that tho, Association has other grievances. These are gravely put forward aa t being the over-manning of the Department, the decline in traffic otfing to the increase in charges, and the allegedly partial manner ia which the policy as to retirement on account of age afad length of service has been administered. It is making a bad matter vporse to pretend that the Association's decision was instigated by such absolutely futile reasons. There is only one way by which the forces of revolution and Sovietism can be met and that is by th'& most unyielding opposition. To seek ifco palliate, by the flimsiest of excuses, the threat implied by the action of thci Association, is to play with fire.