COMMERCE CHAMBER AND RAILWAYMEN

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 226, 19 June 1940, Page 8

COMMERCE CHAMBER AND RAILWAYMEN

Proposed Conference FRIENDLY RECEPTION PROMISED “As far as this chamber is concerned, if the railwaymen can come here and show us, as they have undertaken to do, that we have done anything to disrupt the Government’s war ■effort, then wc shall be very happy to repent. We know, of course, that that cannot be proved, for there is not an atom of justification for the allegation,” said the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Mr. R. H. Nimmo, at last night's meeting of the council of the chamber. On May 30, a mass meeting of Hutt Railway Workshops employees adopted a resolution, which said, inter alia: “We consider t he chambers of commerce and the Farmers’ Union are seriously disrupting the Government’s war effort and using this as an excuse to attack working conditions which have been built up over a long period of years.” At a subsequent meeting of the chamber of commerce a suggestion was made that representatives of the workshops men be invited to a round-table conference for an exchange of views. Mr. Nimmo said last night an invitation had been sent to the secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and had not yet been acknowledged to his knowledge. “We have no feelings of animosity to any employees in the Railways Department,” he said, "and they will be received in a friendly spirit. There is no room today for class bickering and petty differences.”