The Methods of Mr Sullivan.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18517, 20 October 1925, Page 8

The Methods of Mr Sullivan.

In his opening address in Avon on Thursday night Mr D. G. Sullivan | said " he understood that the Govern- " ment proposed to tax the workers " to the extent of about 7s 6d each per " week for a fund having an object " similar to motherhood endowment." ' This charge the Prime Minister showed to be without foundation in fact, and |we invited Mr Sullivan on Saturday j morning, if he happened to be sincere in making it ih the first place, to correct the false impression that his speech must have made. Last night he replied to that invitation by repeating the charge in a far more discreditable manner. "I suggested," he said, "that the Government proposed practically to reduce wages by 7s 6d a "week"; but instead of adding that the suggestion had since been found to be unjustified, he actually took credit to himself for saving the workers the money the Government would have taken from them if he had not exposed its iniquitous pufpose. And the shamefulness of it all so far as Mr Sullivan is concerned is that he is not acting in ignorance. To a man new to political life it might appear that a Departmental Report is the same thing as a Cabinet decision or proposal. Mr Sullivan knows that it. is not the saine things and that the onei has no nectary connexion with the other. The Report in which this j question of family allowances is re-1 ferred to is the Report of the perrna- j nent head of the Labour Department, j and is a document, as Mr Sullivan knows, in which the Secretary of Labour is in the habit of reviewing all kinds of proposals affecting Labour, without in any way committing the Government. When therefore he gave as the authority for his "suggestion" the Report'in which the Government reviews the work of the past year, and added that "often these " reports indicated a proposal that it " [the Government] intends to carry " out in the following year or- some " time in Hie future," he "was comnuttim<r the doable offence pf mis-statfc,

! ment, and misrepresentation. Tor the Government does not write this Report: it is written by the permanent head of the Department, who remains where he is whatever Governments come and go, and who does not even express the opinion or intention of the Minister, far less of the Government as a whole. Mr Sullivan knows as well as anyone that even if the Minister were attracted by the {Secretary's references to any subject, and actually decided to take them up, he would still have to secure the support of hi-; colleagues, and that until he hail done so. and the proposal had been definitely adopted as a part of (lie Government's programme, it would be incorrect to speak of it as a Government proposal. W hat Mr Sullivan " suggestedmay or may not have been the same thing as what he hoped to convey; but what lie clearly tried io convey on Thursday night was what the " Maoriland " Workei'" sought to convey with its impudent headlines, viz., that the Government; had actually decided, if returned to power, to take 7s 6d a week from every worker's wages. And he went further still last night by posing as the man who had saved Labour from this dire calamity. ]t if? worth pointing out also as an indication of Mr .Sullivan's methods that if the Government had intended to adopt the "possible solution" of the needs wage question referred to by the Secretary of Labour, it would not have taken 7s 6d from every worker. It would have taken 7s Gd from " every single man, widow'er, or " mtirried man without children," but to every other man it would have repaid either as much as or considerably more than it had taken away, a married man with one child receiving the same total as at present, a mail with two children 7s 6d a week more, with three children 15s a week more, and with four children actually £1 2s 6d a week more. To call such a proposal a plot to cut wages by 7s; 6d is just about as crooked an attack as the country has yet seen.