IS IT A STRAIGHT DEAL?

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 25 March 1922, Page 5

IS IT A STRAIGHT DEAL?

+ POSTAL SERVICE AND LABOUR ALLIANCE.

' (Contributed by the Welfare Leagufc.) We continue our protest against the proposal to link up the Post and Telegraph Officers' Association with theAlliance of Labour for three very defenite reasons: (1) That, an association whose members are officers of the State, pledged. to serve the whole of the public, should I not be allied with an outside class and" partisan organisation either of employers •, or Svorkers. (2) That such alliance must prove at '' grave danger to the State, as in the ■■': case of serious industrial disturbances I the loyalty of the public service would- : Ibe divided between obeying the auth- , ority of the Government or that of the = Alliance. ' (3) That the strenuous efforts beingmade to combine the Association witk the Alliance is, in our opinion, a serious , menace to the interests' of all employed: i^ the Post and Telegraph service, as it Paeans committing them to the sup- ' porting of a revolutionary communistic; objective, which has never been properly explained to them by their officers. Over and over again the League haa, challenged the Alliance of Labour topublish its full constitution in the.press, where everybody could read it. We ask 1 the postal employers to consider ther fact that this has never been done. Mr. H. E. Combs, secretary of the? ; Post and Telegraph Associationj in JetI ters which appeared in the Taranakl Herald and the Hawera Star on the lOttt of this month,- says: "So, far as ; my organisation is concerned, the * full textr of the constitution of the Alliance of Labour has been printed arid circulated (as a private document) amongst themembership.'' Now, these words are?. very plain, and are Mr. Combs' own. What do we find? A number'of men j employed in the post office have beeiii interviewed, and each and every one has i stated positively that he has never received or seen any reprint of the constitution which Mr. Combs has circulated amongst his members. We believe these postal men are honest and are telling the truth. What, then, does this mean? Have the reprints been supplied to some members, and not ta all? Have they been supplied to any? The question arises, are the members . of the P. and T. Officers' Assocition receiving a straight deal in being asked to vote for joining an Alliance the con-. stitution of which some of them at least have never seen. We have stated publicly that one part of the objective of the Alllane* reads: "The collective ownership of the means of production and distributions and the control of the industries by tne workers who operate them." Neither Mr. Combs nor Mr. J. Roberts, secretary of the Alliance, can deny the truth of our statement that snch is the objective. Applied to the Post and Telegraph industry or service, that pbjectfre demands that..the_service shall be taken out of the hands of the Government and controlled by the workers who operate it. Does Mr. Combs, Mr. IWVKenwe, and other supporters of the Alliance up=hold ench a demand ? —if not, their attitude is pure\ sham. No one can be for a thing and against it at the same time. The advocates of the nllfanco either honestly support therr declared revolutionary objective, with f.ll it entails, or they are plainly deceiving thenr own members and t^e public. There 7<? I far too ro"ch camouflage, sophistry, apd pretence being used in connection with this matter.