MISUNDERSTOOD?

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 31, 5 August 1925, Page 5

MISUNDERSTOOD?

P. AND T. OFFICERS AND ALLIANCE OF LABOUR. In a statement to a reporter to-day, the secretary of the P. and T. Association stated that it appeared to the delegates at their conference that the Press have misunderstood, the resolution which the conference passed yesterday on the subject of the 1 Alliance of Labour. The delegates' have taken up as their paramount duty the task of protecting tho rights of their members as citizens of New Zealand. The delegates know that the members of the association will be obedient to the exercise of all constitutional authority, but, where an embargo is imposed against doing what is an absolutely lawful thing (as was done by the Government in the matter of the P. and T. Association's affiliation with the Alliance of Labour), and that embargo is autocratic and not constitutional, the delegates, as tho guardians of the -rights oi the membership, considered* it their bounden duty to protest. When this unlawful embargo against affiliation has been withdrawn, the delegates have decided to resubmit the question of affiliation with the Alliance of Labour to a second postal ballot. There is therefore absolutely no justification for the alarmist editorials which have so far appeared. [So far as "The Post" is concerned the position has not been misunderstood. Our comment was based upon the secretary's statement, and not upon the conference resolution, which was received later. The attitude we adopted was that Post and Telegraph employees were entitled to organise, but not to affiliate with an outside alliance, because, in industrial matters, the Government must be neutral, and similar neutrality may rightly be demanded of its employees.—Ed. ]