UNION FUNDS AND POLITICS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26198, 23 August 1950, Page 9

UNION FUNDS AND POLITICS

Sir, —Your article on union funds and politics- scarcely does justice to the occasion. Do you not realise that an improvement on democracy has been discovered, and in little New Zealand no less? In the dull old days we used to believe that governments derived -their just powers from the governed and that the will of the majority was supreme. Now we know that it is a self-defined elite that should be sovereign: “the active, progressive, industrially and politically intelligent section of the working class.” (Don’t be so modest, Mr Grant!) Evidently it is they who know best and being obliged to depend on the votes of dull, cloddish labourers like myself would only thwart and fetter them. Our mistake is that we thought Mr Grant was there to carry out our wishes. Of course we see now we are here to shut up and obey his orders, with all due humility.—Yours, etc., D. B. CONNELL. August 22, 1950.

Sir, —It is only fitting and proper that you should quote from Dr. Hare’s “Industrial Relations in New Zealand” to support your editorial contentions about contemporary national legislation. But to give a halo of infallibility to one deliberately selected portion of this reference could be without validity unless other relevant portions are considered too, especially the next Chapter 8, “Organisations of Employers” (page 209). “The employers control industry,” etc. Workers are at a decisively comparative disadvantage in only possessing trade unions, whereas the employers have the active support of the dominant political party. Employers’ Federation and affiliations, manufacturers’ associations and Chamber of Commerce. Still, if apathetic Bill Smith, who works for a firm, and the fruits of whose labour indirectly contribute to his employer’s affiliations prefers going to welcome the Ranfurly Shield team home than to his union meetings his economic reward is only commensurate with his political interest.—Yours, etc., A. E. E. IVORY. August 22, 1950.