GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AND THE ALLIANCE OF LABOUR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18545, 4 May 1922, Page 3

GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AND THE ALLIANCE OF LABOUR.

By J. MacGhegob, M.L.C. Legislation should be enacted — * (1) Forbidding the affiliation, federation, or amalgamation of any association of Government employees with any other association; (2) Empowering the Governor-in-Coun-cil— (a) To dissolve any association of Government employees in case of Its being affiliated, federated, or amalgamated with any other association ; (b) To dissolve any association of Government employees, or any other association in case of its entering upon or threatening or preparing to enter upon or take any part in any strike or other movement challenging the supremacy of the State or of Parliameht; (c) To dissolve any association in New Zealand affiliated or federated with any association beyond New Zealand ; (d) To dissolve any federation of associations of Gover-lnent employees in New Zealand. Tfie foregoing propositions embody tljp Substance of a notice of motion placed Upon the Order Paper 5 of the Legislative Council last session at the instance of a private member. There was obviously no connection between this action in the' Council and the proposal for the affiliation of the Post and Telegraph Association—(P. and T.A.)—with the Alliance of Labour, for that proposal had not then been heard ofj but it will probably be generally admitted that the agitation that has since arisen out of that proposal goes far to show the necessity for some such legislation as waa suggested in the Council. What did suggest the action taken in the Council waj obviously the fact that another association of Government employees—the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (A.S.K.S.J —has for some years been in affiliation with the alliance, —a fact which has attracted little or no attention. Now that the press and the Chambers of Commerce have taken up the question in connection with the action of the P. and T.A., and that, the Government seems to have overcome to some extent its reluctance to interfere with the proceedings of those extremists who have been allowed by the unions to constitute themselves the leaders of "Labour, it' is to be hoped that public attention will be directed to the position Of the A.S.R.S.; for even now there is no indication of any intention on the part of tljp Government to deal with it. It is difficult to imagine how the Government can justify its action in refusing to recognise the P. and T. A. lyhen it continues to recognise the A.S.R.S., notwithstanding its affiliation with the alliance,-and in spite of the .fact that such affiliation constituted "a breach of -an. express stipulation imposed as a condition of the official recognition of that society by the Liberal Government after the maritime strike.

That stipulation was to the effect that the society should not affiliate with any outside Labour body. It appears from evidence given some years ago by Mr M. J. Mack, the secretary of the AiS.R.S. (who now_ occupies, conspicuously, the position of president of the Alliance of Labour) before the Railways Committee of the House of Representatives, that, at the time of the maritime of 1890, the railwaymen were affiliated with the Maritime Council, and that in order to avoid the possibility of such a situation in future, the Government of the day agreed to recognise the society on the understanding that it was not to affiliate with any outside Labour body. And now, about a quarter of a century later, what do we see? The A.S.E.S. in the position of a leading member of an alliance comprising. suchrevolutionary unions ns the Seamen’s Federation,' the Waterside Workers’ Federation, the Miner’s Federation, and other such bodies! We see that alliance, under the presidencv of the secretary of the A.S.R.S., actively engaged in the enterprise of bringing about the affiliation of another association of Government employees (the P. and T. A.) with the alliance, apparently with the- ultimate object of achieving the formation of One Big Union (0.8. U.), a militant and highly disciplined organisation capable of defying the State itself! And the Government, the organ ®f the State,-looks complacently on at the process! The explanation of this attitude probably is that the Government knows that it does not possess the power necessary to enable it to deal with such a situation. If the Government is afraid to ask Parliament to give it the necessary power for fear of a refusal, the sooner-the question is raised and submitted to the' people as an issue at a general election the better. If ,it be the case that the Government had doubts as to the necessity for action at the time when it allowed, or acquiesced in, the affiliation of the A.S.R.B. with the alliance in 1919, it is difficult to conceive the possibility of the existence of any silch doubts now, in view of the recent revolt* in South Africa. Speaking in the Cape Parliament shortly ofter the crushing- of the revo|t on the Rand General Smuts , said: “The genuine workers wqre entirely superseded, and their place •was taken by. a completely different body of men and .leaders. - A revolutionary junta of five, • known as the Council of Action, took' tjie placfc'of the.augmented Labour Executive.” The plan of the Council, op Action was to inflame the lowest of whites recruited from the least developed foreign countries to revolt against the ’ institutions of Government set up by the people of South Africa. To this rabble the revolutionary propagandists preached the deadliest and most. dangerous doctrines. We know that revolutionaries of the same type are preaching the same doctrines in Australia to-day under the same “red flag,” pretending to be merely carrying on a crusade for the improvement 6f the lot of the workers, when their real aim and is the destruction of the industrial, social, and/ parliamentary systems, and the introduction of Sovietism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. We know that in' Australia there is a Cqjincil of Action similarto that which stampeded into a revolution the Labour executive in South Africa that had merely strike. must now realise that_ the New Zealand Alliance of Labour is in reality just such another Council of Action, and that there are extremists in the alliance, and "even in our Parliament, who have advocated manciples similar to those of <the Third International and the declared policy of Lenin and Trotsky to make war against constituted Governments. A- short time ago the Maoriland Worker. the official organ of the Alliance of Labour, assured its readers, and amongst them the members of the A.S.R.S., that in its progress towards the ideals of the One Big Union (0.8. U.) the Alliance has now made greater advances than the Australian organisation. Last year a sort of Red International was held in Melbourne, at which Mr H. E. Holjand, a New Zealand member of Parliament. represented the Alliance of Labour, ar.d Mr Theodore, the Socialist Premier, was one of the representatives for Quecnslartd. Mr Theodore discovered that the red of the conference contained too much vermilion even for him, and he tried, but unsuccessfully, to tore down the colour of some of the resolutions. Tt does not appear, however, that the New Zealand representative experienced any such qualms, so that it would seem that the Maoriland Worker had good grounds for its selfsatisfaction. Mr Massey has intimated in p’ain terms that the Government will not tolerate any interference on the part of an “outside organisation” such as the ’ Alliance - with a State department, and that the P. and T. A. will nave to choose between the Alliance and the Government ; but he will find it difficult to deal with the subject without legislation, and we have no indication of any intention to deal with the A.S.R.S. The Premier is not likely to forget the humiliation to which he, along with the ■rest of the community, was subjected by the action of ■ the Association of Enginedrivers.- Firemen, and Cleaners at the time of the visit of the Prince of Wales, and it is surely high time that some provision was made to enable the Government to obviate the possibility of such an occurrence in future. We were informed by cable about two years ago' that M. Milloraiid, the Socialist Premier of France, had met a similar difficulty -by ordering unionist State officials to withdraw from the Labour Confederation on account of its revolutionary character, and the Government was legislating to give State officials the right of combination, but forbidding membership of the Industrial Federation.

The wedkly meeting of the Roslyn class of the W.E.A. was held in the Baptist Schoolroom on Monday evening, there was again a large attendance. Mr Johnson, continuing the syllabus study, briefly re-sketched* the underlying principles in the evolution of society, and jn passing referred to the general acceptance to-Jay of a stronger note of humanitarianism as a hopeful sign of progress. Reviewing the_ inception and growth of organised society in the European settlement of New Zealand, he showed that the beginning of things in this country presented to the student certain novel and ‘jjfKtif™ faatnraa.