POLITICAL INFLUENCE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 207, 16 August 1927, Page 5

POLITICAL INFLUENCE.

DIRECTING THE JUDICIARY ALLEGED BY~A~NEWSPAPER. ROYAL COMMISSION TO INQUIRE. (Received 16, 11.50 a.m,) Sydney, Aug. 16. The Government is appointing a Royal Commission to inquire into statements contained in the article of a correspondent published in the “Sydney Morning Herald” and a leadei thereon by the “Herald,” in Which the correspondent, dealing with industrial awards, says:—“The Government, by hook or by crook, managed to maintain its bare majority and it is to this Government that the Industrial Commissioner owes his appointment and acknowledges his duty. If this is true, it follows that the administration of our industrial system is dictated not by justice, as is the promised aim of other tribunals, but by political inuuences.”

The ‘.‘Herald” leader says, inter alia; “Rural workers are not blind. They know the stern reality behind farmers’ protests against the award. The Industrial Commissioner has said himself that he Is not so much a judge as the voice of a Parliamentary majority, and that his procedure in fixing the rural basic wage was to make an award first and hear evidence after.” Tile Government considers these comments an attack on the judiciary.