COMPLAINT AND DENIAL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 97, 24 April 1912, Page 8

COMPLAINT AND DENIAL.

Complaint is made by Mr. M. J. Reardon, secretary of tho General Labourers' Union, that the Labour Department has unduly hampered his endeavours to secure registration for tho labourers employed in thp freezing works in tho Wellington district. Tho chief ground of tho complaint, as slated by Mr. Reardon, is that the Department has refused to .resistor the union as one operating throughout th<s "industrial district of Wellington," which extends as far as Hawkes Bay and Wanganui—and ho alleged that this was done at the dictation of the employers. It has also been published that no official reply to the charges could be obtained, because the "labour offices were closed for holiday yesterday." A Post reporter called on ■Mr. Rowley, chief clerk of tho Labour Department, to-day, and that officer said that the offices wero open all day yesterday, and that he was in attendance till 5 p.m. As to Mr. Reardon's statements, he said the Departmental officers wore debarred from giving information to tho Press without Ministerial authority, but he thought he could say that the allegations made by Mr. Reardon wero entirely wrong, and, in fact, quite absurd. "There is nothing," he added, "to prevent the immediate registration of the union, and tho Department has facilitated tho application in every possible way,"-