A MANAWATU OBJECTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17199, 20 June 1916, Page 7

A MANAWATU OBJECTION.

FLAX MILL WORKERS' LETTER.

[Per Press Association.] WELLINGTON, June 19.

During last week Mr Massey received a letter from the secretary of the Manawatu Flaxmills' Employees Union forwarding a copy of a resolution objecting to the Military Service Bill and threatening a strike if the Bill was enforced. In reply Ma- Massey sent the following letter:— Sir,—l am in receipt of your letter of June 12, covering a copy of resolutions said to have been carried unanimously at a large mass meeting of members of your union held at Palmerston North on Saturday last. Permit me to remind you, and through you the members of your union, that the first duty of the Government is to preserve law and order and maintain constitutional authority in the country, and that it is bound further to protect and defend the nation against its enemies, both from without and within. "In passing the Military Service Bill the National Government has considered first (as was its bounden duty) publio safety, with which tho welfare of the community is inseparably associated. You may rest assured when it reaches the Statute Book, as it will do in a few days, it will be administered by the Government with the strictest impartiality without fear or favour and in the best interests of the nation, from which I hope tho members of your union do not wish to dissociate themselves. "I note that your first resolution claims that the meeting of flaxworkers at which it was carried ' having carefully considered the conscription Bill in detail now before legislators and its passage through the House is of unanimous opinion that it is not a military necessity,' etc. From my personal knowledge of the affairs of this country, extending now over a period ot twenty-two years, during which I have been continuously a member ot the House of Representatives, I am satisfied that no measure that ever has come before Parliament has received more careful consideration, first at the hands of Cabinet and then in Parliament, than this Military Service Bill, which you condemn in sweeping terms «I am, further, satisfied that the country as a whole is solidly with the Government in the stops it is taking to preserve the safety .of the nation and to help the Empire in its grave hour of peril, and that in the execution of that supreme duty it will be fully supported by .public opinion.—l am, etc., W. F. Massey."