BOYCOTT AND THREATS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 13

BOYCOTT AND THREATS

(To the Editor.) Sir,—ln your issue of tho 19th instant you published a sub-leader under tho caption "Boycott and Threats, which, to say the least,, is truculent towards the Labour movement, and it is certainly an unfair representation of the opinion of tho recent conference of tiado union icprcacntatives held in place, tho sub-leader asserts that tho decisions adopted by the conference are unconstitutional. WhyT Did not the Prime Minister, Mr. Forbes, slate when he made his now famous prououncemout to reduce wages by 10 poi lout, make a request that interest rates be reduced? Can you blame tho delegales who attended that conference, if they agreed to put into operatio^tho suggestion of the Primo Minister? _ It will be admitted that rentals are mainly the payment of interest on the capital invented in houses, and in its advice to the workers to lower rentals the conference was only carrying out the policy of the Prime Minister when he suggested that interest rates should be reduced. There is surely nothing unconstitutional or weak m a decision of that kind. . . With reference to a-reduction in the cost of living, has not Mr. Forbes and those who support him stated that if wages aro reduced the cost of living will be reduced correspondingly? Well, if the delegates attending-the conference havo accepted tho word of the Primo Minister and his supporters, and incidentally the "Evening Post," that the cost of living would be reduced, and decided to put it into operation, what is wrong with that decision? If the cost of livii o is reduced by 10 per cent, on the day that wages aro reduced by a similar amount, then there will bo, no need to put\that decision into operation. Why do those who havo prophesied that there would be a reduction in the cost of living if wages were .reduced now comi .am if the workers insist that their prophecy shall come true? What is wrong with the decision oi tho conference -hen it recommended to tho workers not to trade with those who advocated a wago reduction and to trade only with thoso wh<, demand that tho wages of the workers shall not be reduced? Is this not tho practice in every commercial concern in New Zealand to-day? If any business insisted that tho income of another business concern should be reduced by 10 per cent., and was powerful enough to enforce its decision, would tho firm whose income was reduced by 10 per cent, trado with its business enemy? Everyone knows that it would not, and may I ask have not Ihe workers" tho same right to organise their purchasing power as those people wlio control other branches of business? The workors must bo conceded the right to trado with their friends despito tho fact that your sub-leader says it is unconstitutional., • If, for instance, Sir Francis Bell and tho Hon. Mr. Forbes opene' providoro stores in Lambton quay, Wellington, in open competition to each other, does the "Evening Post" suggest that tho workers would not have a perfect right to give all their trado to Sir Francis Bell, who is at present demanding that their wages shall not bo reduced nor their standard of living lowered, and cut out, or boycott if you like, Mr. Forbes, who is attempting to enforco an unjust wago cut and lower the standard of life of the working people and their dependants? Surely "Tho Post" will not advocate a policy of trado conscription? lv the concluding paragraph of your sub-loader you slate that you arc amazed at the decisions arrived al. I can assure yuu, Sir, that if you wero present at the conference your amazement would evaporate If you had listened to the roports of delegates when they stated that 75 per cent, of tho membership of tho unions were either unemployed or employed only part-timo and that through the casualucss of employment the wages of tho overwhelming majority of the workers had already been roduced fron^ 25 "to CO per cent., you would wonder 'at the patienco of thoso working people who havo been subjected to economic hardships for months past without a declaration of war on those rosponsiblo for it, and your amazement would be that the conference did not declare a general strike or for open rebellion on the Forbes Government in retaliation for their attempt to subject the workers and their dependants to a position of semi-starvation during tho coinivg winter.—l am, etc., , JAS. ROBERTS, Secretary, N.Z. Allianco of Labour. 20th March. [It is useless to enter into an argument with a correspondent whose casuistry does not even balk at tho contention that refusal to pay rents and charges for goods is the same as responding to an appeal to reduce charges. It may bo nolod, however, that Mr. Roborts in his defence of tho boycott, is quito frank in hia approval of victimisation, which Labour has bcrotoforo resisted by all means in its power. —Ed.]

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