REFORM AND LIBERAL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 14 October 1922, Page 6

REFORM AND LIBERAL.

(To the Editor.) j Siry-My strictures upon the loyalty 1 of rail*ay.men hare evoked etfasiderabk? commer^, but I claim! that in all the 1 main-essentials my charges remain vmrefuted. Even in yotfr own footnote,. i Mr. Editor, in you? desire to see jus- 1 tice done to the railwaymen, ycni* have allowed yourself to overlook an im-' portant aspect of the ease.. Wnea you say of the men -that "disloyalty never entered their minds when they struck ' you are probably near the truth. But we are not concerned with the intentions of the men. We are concerned with the actual result of their action. If their conduct was m fact disloyalthen the innocent intentions of the majority of the men cax;not mitigate' their offence. And surely you;, sir, will agree that a strike under such circumstances, whatever the provocation, was in fact a disloyal act beyond all shadow of doubt. "Diehard" is amusing, at least in those parts where he manage,* to keep above the ludicrous. Take, for instance, his assertion that branch meetings of the A.S.R.S. open, or used' to open with the National Anthem. This is news to most of us, and 1 strongly question its- accuracy. I am ! more prepared to believe that the "Red j Flag" is often sung at railway meetings, and would lite "Commonsense j Labour," who evidently knows the ratli way service from the inside, to pronounce upon the relative" accuracy of our respective assertions. Personally, I consider it would be quite out of place for railwayman to sing "God Save the King," for the^King must know how the New• Zealand railwaymen behaved when the Prince was with , us. In any case, I do not think the singing of the National Anthem sufficient test of loyalty. Personally 1 attach more importance to the oath of allegiance, and then only if taken, not on one isolated occasion, but from time to time. In this connection 1 would suggest that a really effective means of ensuring the absolute loyalty of railwaymen, and for that matter of public servants generally, would bo -to administer the oath of allegiance at regular intervals, and particularly following each salary cut. These are the testing times when the loyalty of } the services should be thoroughly tested. In these days when extreme doctrines are playing such havoc with the mental life of our nation, threatening, it would seem, to undermine the very foundations of the State, we cannot be too exacting in our demands for adequate evidences of the loyalty of the public services. As for the prominence "Diehard" gives to the cordial reception of Messrs" Veitch and Smith by the local A.S.R.S., it may disturb him to hear that Messrs Holland and Fraser were at .about the same time enthusiastically received- by the local railwaymen at a record meeting. In any case "DiehardW confidence in railwaymen seems limited to those resident in Taranaki. He seems uneasy at the growth of extremism in other parts, though his quotations are by no means .the most extreme of those recently made public. For instance, "Diehard'' gives only half of the Auckland j A.S.R.S. resolution, which ended "and I pledges them (the Labour Party) our i support to prevent a recurrence of the horrors of another capitalistic war." This looks very like thin edge of "the wedge for a council of action. Cbt> Near East resolution of the Thorndon ■ branch was even more extreme. Such l are the sentiments of our "sane, loyal • workers," typified by such as Messrs i Veitch and Smith. Surely the public • is not going to be misled by the asserj tion that a spirit of unswerving loyal ty ! animates our railway service. Let us ; face the facts, bad as they are, rather j than bury our heads in the sand in a . stubborn refusal to faes realities."- To j "Commonsense Labour" I should not have bothered to refer but for his state- , ment—obviously directed to myself— that "he does not know what he is ( talking about," Let us see, J did not assert that "all" raJlwaynien were linked up with the. Alliance of Labour. What 1 did say was that, "as a body,' they are affiliated, and I made clear m the next sentence that the "body" I referred to was , the A.S.R.S. On 1 "Commonsense Labour's" own admission this includes 10,000 railway- work-' ers, and he does not attempt to deny that this body is affiliated with the; Alliance, for to deny this would be to I raise the unanswerable question of how fche general secretary of the A.S.R.S. could be president of the alliance—and thi« is not denied. Sir, it is trifling with the matter to suggest that "a.: hundred or so extremists" dominate an' organisation 10,000 strong. If they are not representative of the majority how comes it that they are in power,' that they have been repudiated, and that their sentiments are the prevailing sentiments so far as appears! from the columns of the Railv-' 7 Re-, view? Sir, the failure of my opponents to face^ these points, telling so strongly [ as they do against the loyalty of the: service, leaves that loyalty more open to suspicion than before. In conclu- 1 sion, in ordei to bring the discussion j back to the real point nt issue, let me reiterate with all the emphasis I can' that the Liberal Party, so long as it openly courts favour with such sections of the community as the A.S.R.S., will"" be rightly regarded with suspicion i>yi the loyal, moderate voter, and this sus- j picion can only be dispelled by an early I pronouncement by Liberal leaders! everywhere thai the loyal sentiments j lately expressed by Mr. Wilford are the: sentiments of the party as a whole.—l j am, etc., MODERATE. |