THE I.C. AND A. ACT

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 129, 2 June 1936, Page 10

THE I.C. AND A. ACT

I >'.KW COMMISSIONER MR. M. J. REARDON APPOINTED

The Minister of Labour <the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) announced today that Mr. M. J. Reardon, of Wellington, had been appointed a Conciliation Commissioner under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and would be stationed in Wellington. Mr. Armstrong stated that Mr. P. Hally, the present Conciliation Commissioner for the North Island, was at present indisposed, and on resuming duty he would be stationed at Auckland.

Mr. Reardon has had extensive experience in Labour administration, and has held various important appointments. He was born in 1876 in Waikouaiti, and educated there, and

worked as a farm labourer for a time. Later he came to the North Island, and was at the Forty Mile Bush and in the Mangaweka district. In 1906 he unsuccessfuly stood for the Rangitikci seat, and after ten years' experience in the backblocks he came to Wellington, where, in 1907, he was appointed secretary of the General Labourers' Union, and of the Freezing Workers' Union. These posts he held, the one for twelve, the other for fourteen years. In 1912 he was elected president of the Wellington i Trades and Labour Council, and from 1916 to 1923 was deputy to the workers' representative on the Arbitration Court. He was appointed to the Court, in succession to Mr. McCullough, and took over the unexpired time of his predecessor. After about eighteen months he was succeeded by Mr. Hiram Hunter. In 1923 ho was appointed information officer for New Zealand at the Wembley Exhibition. Other positions which he has filled are secretary of the Wellington Fruit Trades Association and Wellington representative of Sun Newspapers, He was deputy chairman of the Repatriation Board in 1919-21, and a member of the Prices Investigation tribunal of 1920-21, and of the Commission on the Fixation of Prices in 1927. He stood for Hutt electorate against Sir Thomas Wilford in 1911. and opposed Mr. P. Fraser for Wellington Central in 1913.