THE RAILWAY COMMISSIONERS AND THEIR EMPLOYES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8960, 18 August 1892, Page 6

THE RAILWAY COMMISSIONERS AND THEIR EMPLOYES.

[BY telegraph.—PßESS ASSOCIATION.} Wellington, Wednesday. The report of the interview between the Minister of Public Works and the railway servants' deputation was forwarded to the Railway Commissioners by the Minister.

The Commissioners have replied as follows :—

The Railway Commissioners have to thank you for courteously forwarding tc them the report of your interview with the deputation representing themselves as appointed by the conference of Railway servants. The Commissioners are happy to be able to inform you that the relatione between themselves and their railway servants are quite cordial and harmonious. The representations of the deputation being in a great measure erroneous have evidently led you into a misapprehension on this point. The Commissioners think it proper to point out that they are appointed under statute for the purpose among other things, of seeing that the State obtains proper service from its servants on the one hand, and that employees are accorded proper treatment on the other. The railway servants are the servants of the State, paid directly from funds annually voted by Parliament for the purpose; these employees have a special right of appeal to the Commissioners, accorded to them under the statute, besides which the rule in force before the Government Railway Act commenced, and still in force, provides for appeals of any servants having . grievances. Appeals to the Commissioners are made from time to time, by employees who have a grievance, and no other machinery for appeal is needed. As you are, of course, fully aware of the law on the subject, we cap only wonder at the remarks of one of the deputation, who endeavoured to lead you to suppose the employees have to appeal to their officers and not to the tribunal which the Legislature has by Act appointed. The statements made to you thatfpromises given employes, as indicated in D 4, 1890, pages 5 and 6, have not been given effect to, are incorrect. The railway servants are not . children or imbeciles; they know their rights, and are capable and intelligent men. It is a libel on their intelligence to suggest that, as a body, they do not know how to make known their wants to the Commissioners, and that they are afraid to. If it were true, which is not the case, that they were afraid to appeal to the Commissioners, who are appointed by Act to bear such appeals, they would not be likely to have any more assurance vera other Courts of . Appeal set up. The men who were so unhappily incited to strike some two years ago by persons interested in creating difficulties between the Commissioners and the employees, have, as you know, long since been taken back, and those of them who were entitled have since received promotion regardless of former troubles. There is no ill-feeling towards them, and the suggestion made to you to the contrary is misleading and unsupor ted by facts. i3o long as these men honourably keep faith, with their engagements they have nothing to fear. t The intervention of those mischievous and unscrupulous persons who incited the men to disobey orders two years ago between employes and the persons appointed by the Legislature to control them could not fail .to create serious difficulties. The misrepresentations made to you can only confirm the Commissioners in their resolution nob to discuss the affairs of the employes with any persons outside the railways, a proceeding which was evidently never con- ■■■- templated by the Legislature when it conferred powers upon the Commissioners.