ATTACK IN LETTER

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 262, 3 August 1939, Page 10

ATTACK IN LETTER

Position Of Member Of Royal Commission “It is not considered that in bis action of defending his union, of which he .is a responsible officer, Mr. Cook has rendered himself in any way unfit to be a member of the Royal Com mission mentioned,” was the written reply of the Prime Minister, Mr. Savage, in the House of Representatives yesterday, to a question asked by Mr. Jull (Opposition, Waipawa). Mr. .lull had asked tiie Prime Minister: Whether bis attention Ims been called to a letter in the “Evening Post” of July 13. signed by Arthur Cook, who is a member of tiie Royal Com mission set up to consider the sheepfanning industry, in which letter Mr. Cook criticizes the president of the organization of the Farmers’ Union, ami whether any member of a Royal Com mission who shows a bias against one of the parties at whose request the Royal Commission has been set up, and who violates the accepted principle of judicial conduct, is a fit and proper person to act upon a Royal Commission of inquiry? Mr. Savage added that he understood that in the letter Mr. Cook, in his capacity as general secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, replied to statements made at the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union by the president, Mr. W. W. Mulholland, which were regarded by Mr. Cook as an attack on the New Zealand Workers’ Union.