Grey River Argus MONDAY, February 13, 1928. AN EXPOSURE.

Grey River Argus, 13 February 1928, Page 4

Grey River Argus MONDAY, February 13, 1928. AN EXPOSURE.

11 is with good reason that the New South Wales Government is being asked to submit to a Royal Commission the charges of .bribery which a leader of the miners on the Newcastle fields has brought against a leading coal company there. When the Union leader in question, Mr Hoare, announced that he had a sum of more than £5OO, which had secretly been handed him in order to prevent any stoppage of production, there was a tendency to doubt his statement, although he announced that the amount was to be distributed among those of the miners’ dependants who were in need. There was talk of an inquiry on the apparent assumption

ihat the allegation of Jlr Hoare would not stand the acid, but its veracity appears already to have been proved by an admission from an unexpeeled quarter, so ihat if there were question before of a Royal Commission, such an inquiry has now become a necessity. A director of the Stockton Borehole Colliery Company, Mr R. X. Kirk, has in an official statement acknowledged paying Mr Hoare money in the way alleged. Very significant, however, is the difference in terminology used by the coal capitalist and the miners’ loader Inwards the payments made. Mr Hoare. who has not taken the money himself, but instead has handed it over to needy people, calls it a bribe, whereas Mr Kirk says it Aras a “bonus.” He also describes it as an “insurance premium.” Next he will call it a “peace offering.” In openly announcing that the payments had been made to him, Mr Hoare said it was simply a bribe. Mr Kirk exculpates his company as well as the Broken Hill Proprietary Coy, some of whose money was used for the “bonus” or

“insurance premium” by his statement, “1 did not disclose the details to my codirectors, or to the. secret ary of the company, who were quite unaware of Hie payments made to—or through—Mr Hoare.” Now a very simple question suggests itself, and it is as to whj’ Mr Kirk kept the thing a secret. Such a course logically implies Mr Hoare was expected also to keep the “insurance premium” a secret. Presumably that would mean keeping th emoney into the bargain! Mr Kirk admits, however, that the “bonus” came partly out of “an allowance made by the Broken Hill Proprietary Coy, who were anxious to keep the pit regularly at work in the interests of its steel works.” Upon the coal capitalist’s admission, we have here an instance of those secret commissions which are part and parcel of modern capitalism. It might be said that Mr Hoare had been wise not to have taken the money, but, as he points out, he has never lifted a finger to keep the pit going. What he has done, however, is to prove just what measures coal capitalists are prepared to use. The secrecy of the thing is what shows its true character. Such “an arrangement for maintaining peace,” as Mi’ Kirk calls it, was obviously at the expense of the miners, since there was nothing in it, for them, but there was the possibility that the money would influence the recipient to act in favour of the employers’ interest, as against the miners’ interest. Upon what other assumption could the payments be explained? It has been alleged that such an arrangement is no novelty, the implication being that some Union leaders are accepting what is called “palm oil.” Be that as it may, in this case the. palm oil has been exposed without apparently staining the hand of the recipient; but can the same be said of the donors? If Hie thing is no more than corruption, Hie question is. to whom is it due, and what would it not lead to? Would it not be fairer to pay the miners a bonus per ton openly? The point to be noted is that this is the psychology against which organised'Labour has to struggle in the battle for its rights. Mr Kirk’s claim that nobody but he knew anything about it on the employers’ side is one matter which'should go to an inquiry. Another is the principle of such payments. They arc a grave temptation, and a menace to the workers, and those who employ them should be brought to book.