RAILWAYMEN’S RESOLUTION

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24750, 15 December 1945, Page 6

RAILWAYMEN’S RESOLUTION

♦ R. 0.1. CHAIRMAN’S COMMENT “CONTROL,OF THEMSELVES NEEDED” (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 14. “Mr A. B. Grant’s apparent atteffipt to embroil the New Zealand Railway Officers’ Institute in the absurd and ridiculous campaign he and Others have endeavoured to launch would not be worthy of serious Cotaiheht were it not for the fact that the general public may be misled by the statements he is reported to have made,” said. Mr M. J. Forde, editor of the “Advocate,” official journal of the institute, and chairman of the national executive committee of the institute, to-day, referring to the motion carried by the Canterbury branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. Mr Forde said Mr Grant had resorted ■ to old tactics of separating words from their context in order to convey the wrong and unfounded impression that the Railways Officers’ Institute was out of step with the Ministry of Railways and the. management.

The “Rrilway Officers Advocate’’ was not tne official organ of the administrative staff, as Mr Grant was reported to have said, put of the whole of the first division of the railway service, a vast majority of which were not administrative .officers. The article headed “Sadistic Tendencies" had a general application regarding the pathological application, to Which some Were subject, and urged that sllCh ailments Of character in shape or form shduld be fought, and those suffering from such grevious affliction for, theit own sake should recognise '& serious cbmplaint and endeavour by every means to get rid of it as quickly as possible. It was clearly and definitely slated in the article that such officers, it was pleasing to note,, received no ‘encouragement in the Railway Department nowadays. Mr Forde quoted from the article in the “Advocate” which referred tb the cordial relations existing between the Minister arid management and the Railways Officers’ Institute and added that the present Minister of Railways had not only earned the loyalty bf members, but was also held by them in the highest respect and esteem. The Minister had never failed oil any promise he had made and had never let railway officers down. ‘Mr Forde commented that he was a member of the A.S.R.S. as well as of the R. 0.1. and added: "Politically and industrially I can, find rio valid reason for the latest GhristdhlirCh Otitbteak which, if persisted in, rtlUst lead to anarchy; chaos, .fend disaster. There is no justification for it.whatsoever.’’ Referring to the Christchurch suggestion of workers’ control, Mf Forde said; “What is heeded more than anything else at the present time by those concerned is hot eohtrOl bf industry but control of themselves.”