GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AND THE ALLIANCE OF LABOUR.

Otago Witness, Issue 3556, 9 May 1922, Page 63

GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AND THE ALLIANCE OF LABOUR.

By

J. MacGregor M.L.C.

Legislation should be enacted—(l) 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 Parliament ; (c) To dissolve any association in New as Zealand affiliated or federated with any association beyond New Zealand : (d) lo dissolve any federation of associations of Government employees in New Zealand. The foregoing propositions embody the substance of a notice of motion placed upon the Order Paper of the Legislative Louncil 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 I. A.)—with the Alliance of Labour, or that proposal had not then been heard °L but jt 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 was suggested in the Council. What did suggest the action taken in the Council was obviously the fact that another association of Government employees—the Amal- , Sooety of Railway Servants ' mr ' “as for some years been in affiliation with the alliance,—a fact which a^rac l e d 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 i.A., and that the Government seems to have overcome to some extent its reluetanr-e 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 fee directed to the position of ! j. A.o.K.b. ; for even now there is no indication of any intention on the part of s?e Government to deal with it. It is difficult to imagine how the Government can justify its action in refusing to recogth.e I : T an l T ,A'. wllen it continues to nfr-w f-' Se th -x, A -. s - R - 8 -, notwithstanding its affiuation 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. Tliat 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 A.S R R " f w j lo 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 strike 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 1 he 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.TLS in the position of a leading member of an alliance comprising such revolutionary- unions as the Seamen’s Federation, the Waterside Workers’ Federation, the Miner’s Federation, and other such bodies! We see that alliance, under the presidency 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 of 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 ihat the Government hud doubts as to the necessity for action at the time when it allowed, or acquiesced in. the affiliation of the A.S.R.S. with the alliance in 1919. it is difficult to conceive . the possibility of the existence of any such doubts now, in view of the recent revolt in South Africa. Speaking in the Cape Parliament shortly after the crushing of the revolt on the Rand General Smuts said: “The genuine workers were entirely superseded, and their place was taken hy a completely different body of men and leaders. A revolutionary junta of five, known as the .Council of Action, took the place of the augmented Labour Executive.” The plan of the Council of 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 of the lot of the workers, when their real aim and object 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 Council of Action similar to that which stampeded into a revolution the Labour executive in South Africa that had merely declared a strike. Our Government 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 principles similar to those of sthe infamous 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. Holland, a New Zealand member of Parliament, represented the Alliance of Labour, ar.d Mr Theodore, the Socialist Premier, was one of the representatives for Queensland. Mr Theodore discovered that the red of the conference contained too much vermilion even for him. and he tried, but unsuccessfully, to tor.e down the colour of some of the resolutions. It 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 plain 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 have 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 tlie 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 ar, occurrence in future. We were informed by cable about two years ago that M. Millerand, 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.