MINERS URGE ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26395, 13 April 1951, Page 6

MINERS URGE ELECTION

REPRESENTATIONS TO MR NASH (New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, April 12. The Waikato, Grey Valley, and Buller miners consider that the Government should hold a General Election "and take the secret ballot it lias so ardently advocated for others." If it does not, they say it should arrange bv compulsory conciliation and arbitration for an honourable settlement of the waterfront strike. They also want an emergency session of Parliament “to let the public have the whole truth.” The Leader of the Opposition (Mr W. Nash) and the Deputy-Leader (Mr C. F. Skinner) have been told this by y the miners’ representatives. A report of a meeting with the Labour Party leaders was made to a meeting of the Huntly miners on Monday bv Mr A. C. Baxter, a former member of Parliament, who was a delegate to the Waikato Central Committee of the Miners’ Union. Mr Baxter said that a case was presented “on behalf of the majority of the rank and file of the United Mine-

workers of New Zealand, who were opposed to the Emergency Regulations.” The party leaders were told that the miners thought the regulations undemocratic, strongly resented tlfe Government “vetoing” the elected representatives of any organisation, protested against police interference in trade union meetings, and strongly resented the power to interfere with telephonic and postal communications.