SECRECY OF POST OFFICE,

Otago Witness, Issue 3993, 23 September 1930, Page 33

SECRECY OF POST OFFICE,

THE AUCKLAND DISMISSALS,

PROTEST AGAINST REINSTATEMENT.

WELLINGTON, September 16. Maintaining that it was absolutely essential that secrecy should be observed in the Post. Office the chairman of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce (Mr D. J. M'Gowan) to-night expressed the opinion that the action of the department in dismissing six officers of the Auckland telegraph office for divulging information in regard to telegrams deserved the commendation of the business community. A resolution was passed protesting against the reinstatement of any officer who had been found guilty of such an offence. Mr M'Gowan said that since the last meeting of the council of the chamber he had read in the newspapers that a parliamentary committee had recommended that the men should be taken on again for the reason that the punishment of dismissal was too harsh. As the matter of divulging information in the Post Office was a most serious one he had made it his business to ascertain the facts.

The men concerned were suspected of divulging information in regard to racing telegrams. They were‘tried before a magistrate in Auckland and found guilty. They were then dismissed from the service. They were heard before an appeal board, consisting of a magistrate (Mr E. C. Cutten) as chairman and two departmental officers—one appointed by the department and one member elected by the votes of those employed in the department. The appeal was dismissed, the three members of the Appeal Board, including the men’s representative, concurring in the decision. The men then petitioned Parliament, and he understood, the same evidence was given before the parliamentary committee. Mr M'Gowan said he had looked up the statutes on the question and found that in the Post and Telegraph Act it was provided that officers who divulged information in'regard to telegrams were liable to a fine not exceeding £lOO or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months. In view of that it could not be said that the punishment was harsh. Postal officers, he understood, took an oath of secrecy when they were employed, and it was absolutely essential that this oath should bo kept inviolate. This, concluded Mr M'Gowan, is essentially a matter for the business man to consider. He should, by every means in his power, support the. department in its endeavour to uphold the fine traditions that have existed in the Post Office. The fact that the telegrams were racing telegrams has no bearing on the question. They might as well have been business telegrams.

The following appeared in last week’s Second Edition.