SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 139, 14 May 1941, Page 7

SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS

UNION OFFICIALS. STORY OF THREATS. ! (Press Assn.) WELLINGTON, .May 13. | Allegations that, following comment j by him on the number of union secre- | t aries on Labour tickets for the local ; body elections, five trade .union offi- | rials waited on him in his office, reviled him because lie was a Jew, told ; him he was a money grabber, and demanded a written apology and for a j time locked him in his office, were | made by Mr H. L. Nathan, a Citizens’ I candidate for the Harbour Board, ad- ! dressing a meeting in the Ivelburn tea i kiosk to-night. j -The action alleged to have been ! taken by union officials was strongly 'condemned bv the Mayor (Air T. C. A. Hislop! speaking after Mr Nathan. “I intend repeating part of the speech I delivered at AVadestown inst Thursday evening,” Mr Nathan said. “In that speech 1 said: H have gone through the nominations for the Labour Party for the AYellington City Council, Hospital and Harbour Boards, and L find included in the nominations eight union secretaries and two oxunion secretaries who are candidates for tlie City Council, five union secretaries who arc candidates for the Hospital Board and two union secretaries and two ex-union secretaries who are candidates for the Harbour Board. L want to know, and you ladies and gentlemen should also want to know, lioncan those Labour secretaries do justice to the city, and ratepayers and have impartial minds while they are under the dictation of their Labour unions. There is no doubt those secretaries only naturally have to bow to that authority in order that they can keep their employment.'

! “How did some of these Labour union officials react to this statement? 1 will tell you. At 12.30 p.m. on Friday labt 1 was rung up by a wellknown Labour union official who asked whether 1 would give him an appointment. I said 1 could see him at 2.30 and lie said he would bring another Labour union official along with him, but at 2.30 p.m. five Labour union officials arrived at my office. They shut the door behind them and immediately began to abuse me. “They called-- me the scum of the earth, reviled me because 1 am a Jew, told me that no Jew should hold any public position in this country, also that I was a money grabber, that I was not a producer like them, and that 1 ought to he at the war. “Fancy my being told 1 ought to be at the war at 02 years of aee. 1 told them my only son had just been fighting at the Battle of Olympus.. One shook his first in my lace twice and demanded that I make a written withdrawal of the statement 1 made a* Wadestown and a written apology. Another threatened if I did not withdraw and apologise in writing he would take stops to stoi> my travelling in steamers, trains and trams and would stop the delivery of meat, bread and milk to my house. At one stage one of them locked the door and locked me in my own office.

“I am glad to he able to tell you 1 refused to comply with these demands. Things have come to a pretty pass in New Zealand when a citizen standing for a public office should be subjected to such treatment as this. I consider it in the interests and for the benefit of the public that the facts should be made known.” Air Nathan said ho wa6 not in a position to say any more about the incident that night. “AA'e have mob rule in this country.” lie said, “and T had experience of 35 minutes of mob rule on Friday afternoon.”