THE TRAMWAY BOARD ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21940, 14 November 1936, Page 10

THE TRAMWAY BOARD ELECTION

TO TBS UUTOS or TBX PRESS. Sir,—-Mr Pariane would send anonymous writera to belt Dear me, that would be victimisation Indeed. I hope when his time comes that he will be given a golden harp on which he can try his hand at stirring up- the emotions of the angels. He asked that one be named with a clean record who had been victimised by the Trades Hall junta. Wha* does he mean by a clean record? If the Trades Hall junta is to be the judge, of what constitutes

a Clean record everyone who has criticised it or who has refused to obey its orders will not have a clean record. Every man who has served the public on airy local body in opposition to the junta v has been victimised. They seem unable to discuss any public question without introducing personalities. Mr Parlane referred to a man who had asked at the Trades Hall for some copies of Jack London’s remark about strikes. I think it is probable that someone has been pulling his leg. It is interesting to have Mr Parlane’s admission that such stuff was issued from the Trades Hall junta. There are justifiable strikes, and there are some that cannot be justified on any reasonable grounds. The tramway strike was such a one. Jack London would be disgusted to know that what he had written in favour of a justifiable strike was used by a junta to exploit the people and to glorify themselves. Mr G. Manning said they had a mandate from the people to favour the strikers at the expense of loyalists. That was not correct. No such mandate was given by the people. It may have come from the Trades Hall junta. As far as the people were concerned the strike was finished with. The strikers had asked that Mr Donnelly be appointed to arbitrate and signed an undertaking to abide by his decision and the Labour candidates signed a manifesto that no one would lose his legal rights. That mandate exists only in their imagination. Mr E J. Howard said the ratepayers could recoup themselves by buying concession tickets. That is of course impossible. Ratepayers have to pay as much for concession tickets as non-rate-payers. and in addition, they have to pay the tram tax. That is an example of the junta’s muddled thinking, or is it that any excuse is good enough for exploiting the' people? Yours, etc., RADICAL. November 13, 1936.