ALLEGATION OF GREED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 5

ALLEGATION OF GREED

STATEMENT IN COURT OF ARBITRATION

REMARKS WITHDRAWN BY ADVOCATE

(TUB PRESS Special Service.} WELLINGTON, July 28. ‘‘The real reason employers in the baking industry demand the right to require their workers to work at any time of the day or night is the greed of the larger firms for trade and dividends,” said Mr E. J. Watson, advocate for the workers, during the hearing of the Dominion bakers’ and pastrycooks’ application for a new award in the Court of Arbitration at W:’lington to-day. “Do you think that a fair statement?” asked Mr W. Cecil Prime, employers’ representative on the Court. He said it was a bald statement entirely unsupported by evidence. • Mr Justice O’Regan agreed that the statement required to be supported by evidence. It might be possible o prove that certain people sought to secure larger dividends, but there could be no proof of greed. Mr Watson said that that was the way it appeared to him. When he had been working at the trade he had frequently been told to “get a move on” when his employers heard other bakers’ carts going by early in tne morning, and their own still waiting. Mr D. I. Macdonald, advocate for the employers: Isn’t that what you are in business for? Sprely you don’t expect employers to see their competitors beating them to business and not doing anything about it? “I don’t think your remarks about greed get you anywhere, Mr Watson,” said his Honour. “We hear quite a lot of similar statements; but where they are without proof we ignore them. They do not help your case.” Mr Watson: I am quite prepared to withdraw those particular remarks. His Honour: I think it would be best.