ATTACKS ON FREEDOM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 26, 30 July 1938, Page 25

ATTACKS ON FREEDOM

LABOUR'S LAWS

USE OF UNION FUNDS

Numerous instances in which he saidj the freedom of the individual had been diminished through recent legislation were given by Professor R. M. Algie, organiser of the Auckland Provincial Freedom Association, in an address last night, stated the "New Zealand Herald" yesterday. With the exception of a few interjections from a small sec-1 tion of the audience, Professor Algie I was given a very attentive hearing. At the end, cri the motion of Mr. W. J. Campbell, he was accorded a hearty j vote of thanks. j During t#o years of active legisla-j tive work, said Professor Algie, the Labour Government had passed some 98 public and general Statutes, and with one exception there was nothing in these Statutes which enlarged in any way the constitutional or legal libeilty of the individual citizen. PUBLIC SERVICE RIGHT 3. The one instance in which the liberty ! of the subject had been enlarged was in the case of the Political Disabilities Removal Act of 1936, said Professor Algie. One of the ,two things which it did was to give members of the Public Service the right to offer themselves as candidates for Parliament. It seemed that the Government claimed^ that this was a restoration of a right 'which at some time in the past had been taken away from public servants. It was interesting to note, however, that since 1716 if had been a principle of English law that a servant of the Crown should be disqualified from becoming a candidate for Parliament. . "The Legislature Act of 1908; a New i Zealand Statute which consolidated ail: the previous New Zealand legislation, contained precisely the same principle of' disqualification," said Professpr Algie. "It was reaffirmed by the Electoral Act of 1927. Thus the Act of.the Labour Government"< was in effect ah introduction of a new principle and not a restoration of an old. ' "Another point in the 1936 Act is the provision by which trade unions have been permitted to contribute to political party funds. This also has an' interesting history; In 1910 the English House of Lords decided in an important case that a society which by nature was a trade union could not use its funds for any purposes other than those specified in the Statute creating the society. . : ■! POSITION OF imNORITIES. "As political purposes were not included it followed that they could not use their funds for such purposes. In 1913, however, the English Parliament passed a law giving societies the privilege of .spending money for political purposes, providing that a special fund was provided by the members for this. The English Act, however, contained the important qualification that if; any member of a dissenting minority wished to escape from the effects of this resolution, all he had to do was; to give notice to the secretary of theunion; and thereafter his contributions could hot" be .jised for.' this purpose, i "In 1914 the . late Mr. James McCombs introduced a Bill into*the New Zealand Parliament that/contained an exactly similar qualification as that in the English law. The Act now passed, howeyer, gives to unions the power iio decide by a majority that funds 'maybe used for political purposes,; but does away, with the provision in the English Act and which Mr. McCombs, a Labour member, considered thoroughly desirable. It is a strange circumstance that the Labour Government should do away with a provision which-:has been found adequate and desirable in other countries of the Empire."