MR. MCCULLOUGH AND HIS COLLEAGUES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XI, Issue 243, 18 October 1921, Page 4

MR. MCCULLOUGH AND HIS COLLEAGUES.

The circular letter which has been addressed to the Trade Unions by Mr. McCullough, their nominee on the Arbitration Court bench, and which we reprint from a Wellington contemporary in another column of this issue, makes strange and rather uneasy reading. With those portions of it which bear exclusively on the attitude he has adopted since his resignation the general public has, perhaps, but little concern. That phase lies between him and his constituents, and may be left out of the present discussion. What are, however, of very close and deep concern to the people of the Dominion are the direct and unmistakable accusations which he brings against his colleagues on the bench, Mr. Justice Fraser and Mr. W. Scott, the employers’ representative. For readers to appreciate fully their real significance it may be as well to repeat them here, detached from their context, which in no way qualifies them:— “In the original statement of my reasons for resigning I made it abundantly clear why I had done so. It will bear repeating. I resigned because an honourable understanding —a “gentlemen’s agreement” which could not be put into writing—had been broken by my two colleagues. That I should have been made use of to camouflage the position of the Court made future service by me on the Court impossible, and I resigned immediately the judge announced the 20 per cent, reduction of shearers’ wages. The existence of this gentlemen’s agreement has been denied, as was to be expected. It would be something uncommon, if not unknown, in human experience if the persons who break an honourable understanding should scruple to deny that such existed. ... To again take my place on the bench would be a declaration that I had misunderstood my late colleagues. 1 am not prepared to admit that there was any such misunderstanding, nor do I believe that the position was misunderstood, or could possibly

have been misunderstood, either by them or by myself.” Whether there was any misunderstanding or not between Mr. McCullough and his colleagues, there is no room whatever for any misunderstanding of the serious charges which he now brings against them. In both word and effect he states that each is not only capable of betraying an honourable understanding, but that he is also

capable of, and has resorted to, deliberate lying—there is no use mincing terms —in order to cover up the betrayal. There is also the inevitable inference, or course, that they falsely conspired to justify themselves and to place Mr. McQullough in the wrong.

The notable feature about Mr. McCullough’s letter, one that is conspicuous by its absence, is that he makes no attempt whatever to answer, in fact he entirely ignores, the very restrained, logical, and, to most minds we fancy, convincing explanatory statement, based on the Court’s minutes, which his colleagues at once laid before the public in reply to his original account of his own reasons for resigning. This is an omission that can scarcely be regarded as an oversight, for Mi-. McCullough has more than once said that his rejoiner would be forthcoming “when the proper time came.” Most folk naturally thought that “the proper time” was at once, but resigned themselves to awaiting Mr. McCullough’s good pleasure. The result is a bare and wholly unsupported allegation, by himself alone, that bath the judge and the employers’ representative are dishonorable men, liars, and, inferentially, conspirators. Were we inclined to be cynical, it might well be said that there is in this good reason apparent why Mr. McCullough should have postponed publication (of his reply, even to his constituents, until he had secured reelection. In connection with this “gentlemen’s agreement” it is to be noted, too, that while Mr. McCullough speaks of it as something “that could not be put into writing,” he still seems to have felt himself at perfect liberty, as he himself states in his present letter, to communicate its purport to the unions.. Of Mr. Scott the publicknow but little, though they are quite entitled to assume that his character for honour and truth will stand investigation equally with that of Mr. McCullough. Of Mr. Justice Fraser, however, deemed worthy of elevation to a status equal to that of a judge of the Supreme Court, the public know a good deal in various capacities. It will take something more than Mr. McCullough’s wholly uncorroborated assertion to shake their complete confidence in his veracity, probity, and integrity.