RAILWAYMEN'S RESOLUTION

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24749, 14 December 1945, Page 6

RAILWAYMEN'S RESOLUTION

♦ FURTHER STATEMENT BY MINISTER

REPLY TO SECRETARY OF A.S.R.S. (P.A.) WELLINGTON. Dec. 13. Remarking that he did not intend to be drawn into any newspaper controversy with Mr A. B, Grant, secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, the Minister of Railways (the Hon. R. Semple) said to-day that he had already described the philosophy embodied in the motion passed by the guards and shunters—doubtless at Mr Grant’s instigation—as .“harebrained,” and as he understood the significance of that term he could not imagine any better description of the decision which, if implemented, would allow the worker to thieve, sabotage, and generally neglect, his work provided fie did not become intoxicated. If that were not the implication of the motion, said Mr Semple, then it was indeed very ill conceived.

He was not particularly concerned with what Mr Grant had to say, continued the Minister, but he would be concerned if he thought that the type of action which Mr Grant had proposed, as evidenced by the motion, was likely to be a reflection of the opinions of the rank and file of the service. He knew, however, that the body of railway servants were rational thinking men, who realised that in their own interests discipline and control must be maintained. In matters of this nature he did not deal with the branch secretary, but with the national executive, and for that reason he would hot comment any further on Mr Grant's statement. He. had already made it sufficiently clear that he did not stand for victimisation of any kind, but in any case if there were cases of victimisation as Mr Grant implied, there were proper channels through which the men or their representatives could seek and obtain redress. “It is regrettable that a branch of the Amalgamated Society of RailwayServants should rush into print with a resolution which has a -very far-reach-ing effect on all railwaymen without first consulting or receiving the approval of the society’s executive, which after all is the mouthpiece of the society as far as Government recognition is concerned," said Mr Semple. “Mr Grant has seen fit to quote one paragraph from an article of six paragraphs in the Railway Officers’ ‘Advocate’ for October. Naturally Mr Grant has only quoted that paragraph which he thought might suit his purpose. Had he quoted the following paragraph v in the article referred to readers would have been able to see for themselves that railway officers recognise that under the present Government such ‘sadistic tendencies’ as Mr Grant refers to receive no encouragement in the Railways Department.”