INCITEMENT TO BOYCOTT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23117, 16 August 1938, Page 8

INCITEMENT TO BOYCOTT

Every thinking man should carefully read the letter published this morning—a letter claiming to have the authority of the Auckland Council of the New Zealand Federation of Labour—and weigh the grave issues raised. The letter is a clear incitement to workers to boycott the goods of Mr. George K. Mathieson's bakery. The reason given is that "another driver active on the job in support of his rights" has been dismissed. Everyone knows, of course, that if the driver has good cause for complaint, he possesses ready access to legal remedy. Apparently recourse to the law and the constitutional means of redress has been rejected, the employer is found guilty of giving cause for complaint, and the workers are incited to withdraw their custom. This constitutes an invitation . to direct action in the form of boycott, and other tradesmen and even the workers themselves may ask whose turn it may be next to be threatened in this way. Courts and magistrates have been set up to determine such questions, but the letter in effect repudiates the Courts by casting reflections on the disposition of magistrates as a class, asserting that "some 01 their decisions are nothing short of a scandal." In this case it is claimed that an olficer of the Labour Department and the Auckland Employers' Association advised that Mr. Mathieson was justified in dismissing a driver. If the man or his union is dissatisfied, legal remedy is available. Instead the workers are being incited to take the law into their own hands and inflict dire penalties on Mr. Mathieson. The implications are clear and of the utmost gravity to responsible government, democracy and human justice. The Government and Parliament cannot allow this challenge to pass lest the people be borne down by a new tyranny.