DEFENCE OF UNION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 22

DEFENCE OF UNION

LETTER JUSTIFIED

PRIME MINISTER'S VIEW

Statements made by Mr. Arthur Cook in a letter published in the "Evening Post" of July 13 were the subject of a question put to the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) in the House of Representatives by Mr. A. E. Jull (National, Waipawa), to which a written reply was given 3 resterday afternoon.

Mr. Jull asked whether the Prime Minister's attention had been drawn to the letter, which was signed by Mr. Cook, who was a member of the Royal Commission set up to consider the

sheep-farming industry, and in which he criticised the president and the organisation of the Farmers' Union. Mr. Jull also asked "whether any member of a Royal Commission who shows a bias against one of the parties at whose request the Royal Commission has been set up and who violates the accepted principle of judicial conduct is a fit and proper person to act upon a Royal Commission of Inquiry."

Mr. Savage replied as follows: —"My attention has been called to the letter referred to by the honourable member. I understand that in it Mr. Arthur Cook, in his capacity as general secretary of the New Zealand Workers' Union, replied to statements made at the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union by the president, Mr. W. W. Mulholland, which were regarded by Mr. Cook as an attack on the New Zealand Workers' Union. It is not considered that in his action of defending his union, of which he is a responsible officer, Mr. Cook has rendered himself in any way unfit to be a member of the Royal Commission mentioned."