Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 25 May 1938, Page 4

Readers Write

II was with astonishment that I read a tetter in yc-ur paper of May 19, Signed by R. U. Brighouse. P. L. Ott and G. Mischewski in re-

DRIVERS' AWARD.

i'erence to a prosecution by the Labour Depart-

ment in respect to nonpayment of wages in due form as prescribed in the drivers’ award.

In the first place, whether the drivers’ award is good, bad or indifferent matters not. It is the law, and our union insists that both employers and employees are bound by the conditions. A statement in your correspondents’ letter of May 19 says that a stigma was placed upon their emploj'er by the union inspector responsible. This is an entirely wrong statement, as the Labour Department inspector is not a union official.—HAßßY DAVIES (Secretary, Whangarei Drivers’Union).

As no notice has yet been seen in the “Advocate” of the above subject appearing therein recently, I hope you will, with your

LABOUR UNION PARASITES.

usual fairness, permit me to comment

upon this extraordinary aspersion by “Gnomon,” as many ol our best citizens are unsophisticated, and apt to be deluded by the sophistry -of some propagandists who write over a pseudonym. “Gnomon” said: “Today we see hereditary enemies of labour unionism, as Socialists, occupying the control positions in the Labour Party. They are theoretical Socialists gaining power as a parasitical growth on labour unionism.” Now that may be true, and, if so, they can be known by their fruits, and these with those of their opponents.

Without any circumlocution, it can truly be said: The modern leaders of the Labour Party dre devoted to humanity, and the primitive leaders of the Opposition Party are relics of the party hitherto devoted to inhumanity. Yet, strange to relate, “Gnomon” says: “The time has come for workers to realise that this parasitic growth, if unchecked, will completely enslave them.” This insidious warning is blandly suggested by an anonymous writer who must know that Socialism has never yet been tried without treachery; also that Socialism is only in the embryo stage and Capitalism has failed miserably after hundreds of years’ trial, with every opportunity to have completed a polity similar to that now being enacted by Socialists.

Capitalism wants the workers to be submissively poor, and the workers want every unit to be submissively rich, to avoid inflation of the currency, but capitalists want to inflate and deflate, to treacherously manipulate money for their own advantage. Parasitical growths flourish exceedingly in their ranks. The citizens of this democracy are educated and qualified critics of the political chicanery of capitalist unionism. The propaganda about “losing our freedom” is merely political nonsense. There cannot be freedom in any system of political economy constituted, conducted and supported by men and women whose morality is not cleanly and firmly based on the sublime principles of Jesus Christ, but when so based universally, only then will perfect freedom be possible, and this wonderful planet become a veritable Paradise, where the wicked would cease from troubling, and every mortal pass into Eternity consciencely free from sin.—WILLIAM R. KEAY (Herekino).