THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAY 16, 1949. "THE HOLMES CASE"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27081, 16 May 1949, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, MAY 16, 1949. "THE HOLMES CASE"

There should be no public surprise, but satisfaction rather, in the judgment of Mr Justice Gresson, in the Supreme Court at Wellington, which quashes the dismissal of one Cecil Holmes from his post with the National Film Unit. . Holmes’s appointment was annulled, or, in other words, he was dismissed from his employment as a public servant by a decision of the Public Service Commission in December of last year after Mr Nash, as Acting Prime Minister, had made public a letter written by him concerning a meeting of National Film Unit employees to protest against the Government’s delay in granting pay increases in the public service. This letter spoke of a stop-work meeting, which, in fact, was never called, while it was further claimed that he endeavoured to hold up the work of the unit by “ calling a meeting over the unit’s broadcasting system.” The commission, in annulling his appointment, declared him guilty of “ gross disobedience to authority,” finding him “ unlikely to become a satisfactory public servant.” Mr Justice Gresson’s ruling that his dismissal was “ a violation of the principle of natural justice,” particularly as he was not given the opportunity of being heard before the commission, was the proper one in the circumstances. But there are other circumstances, as they were brought into the light by Mr Nash’s disclosure and the -subsequent events, which the public can view with no satisfaction at all. Holmes was, and presumably is, a member of the Communist Party. There is reason for' believing that the Prime Minister’s Department, and the Prime Minister himself, had awareness of this fact when Holmes was promoted to an important position as a director in the National Film Unit. When Holmes was dismissed the unit employees, in protesting the Public Service Commission’s decision, passed a resolution (with six dissentients) affirming their confidence in Holmes as their representative on the Public Service Association. This ■ unit, as was pointed out in an article in a series on censorship which we published last week, is making films for general exhibition, in which a propaganda element is frequent; and while the films are free to the exhibitors they are not free to the taxpayers, who in the current year have, in addition to paying to see them perforce if they visit the cinema, to pay nearly £120,000 a year for their making. There are 68 officers employed in the unit (their salaries totalling £28,133), and it appears that some 60 of them in December passed a vote of confidence in Holmes as their representative upon what amounts to their trade union “on account of his goo s d work in the past.” If this means anything, it must surely mean that the majority of members of this unit, with its present and great potential value as a political propaganda medium', are satisfied to be represented ,in their dealings with authority by a Communist Party member. Both Mr Nash’s method;-of dealing with “the Holmes case.” and the Public Service Commission’s action on Holmes, were objectionable. It has yet to be explained by what mfans the man’s private papers—and a Government camera —disappeared from a car, the former to reappear in the Acting Prime Minister’s possession. Incidentally, apart from the impropriety of the commission’s decision, the celerity with which it acted, annulling Holmes’s appointment within three days of the Acting Prime Minister’s disclosures, suggests Mr Nash’s intervention, again a deplorable act. But the shabby nature of these proceedings—which is equalled only by the disgraceful events surrounding the dismissal of the first commercial broadcasting director a few years ago—serves only to emphasise the fact that a known Communigt can be employed by the State, and in employment at that which places him in a position having potential propagandist value; and that his confreres have indicated their confidence in l him as their spokesman in dealings with their employer.

Communism is. as Mr Justice Gresson by inference ruled, not an offence in this country. But can any intelligent member of a democratic community, unless he is of the party and so not a subscriber to British democratic principles, believe that Communists should be legally employed by the State? The spy trial in Canada in 1946 revealed the extent to which Communists, including a member of Parliament, may betray their country to a foreign Power. The Communist tactics of disruption are well recognised, as is their ultimate objective, ,the overthrow of the democratic State as we know it. Yet the Government of this country knowingly employs Communists, and, in spite of pious’ resolutions to the contrary, accepts them as members of the Labour Party. Of what value are Mr Fraser’s and Mr Semple’s windy repudiations of Communism when these are the facts? So long as the Government of this country fails to deal with the Communists it is itself, deliberately oy out of sheer weakness and political fear, acting as an agent of the Cominform.