Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 1922. A FALSE STEP.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 15794, 7 April 1922, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 1922. A FALSE STEP.

In whatever light it may be viewed, the recent decision of the officers of the Post and Telegraph Department, as the result of a ballot, to join the Alliance of Labor, a direct actionist body, must be regarded as a false step, and it is not surprising to learn that protests are being made from one end of the Dominion to the other, not alone by public bodies but by members of the Department's staff, who. being quite out of sympathy with the revolutionary movement, are resigning jn hundreds from the Post and Telegraph Officers' Association. The decision of the Association was >in striking contrast to (lie result of a similar poll held in England a, few days ago, particulars of which appear in our cable news to-day. There the Civil Servants' Assosciation decided by a substantial majority against becoming a political organisation. That was a right and proper decision. Members of the public service of any country should, from the very nature of their occupation and the trust reposed in them, be beyond the cheap clap-trap of everyday politics and labor agitation. We are sure thai all old members of the Post and Telegraph service in this Dominion, knowing and appreciating its traditions, and realising the utmost, confidence which has always been reposed in it by the public, will feel deeply (he retrograde step which has been taken—a step which must have the effect of lowering the status of I ho service and which is bound to throw suspicion and distrust upon it. It is all very well for members to as sure the public that there need be no fear of any breach,of the official pledge to secrecy in conse.juenee of Ibis joiningup with the Alliance, but let the day come when political passions run heatedly, or the country is involved in a paralysing strike such ns South Africa recently had experience of, and •where would the confidence of the public be? We do nol doubt that a majority ol members of the service, even under such circumstances, would remain loyal to their solemn undertakings, and would endeavor to preserve strict impartiality in limes of crisis, hut it is not unwise to assume that there would be very strong. influences at work to tempt and sway the weaker or hotheaded brethren, and it is more than probable that in a grave emergency leakages and obstructions impairing the efficiency arid rectitude of the service would occur. It there is one department of State in which absolute impartiality and uprightness is required it is the. Post and Telegraph service, and it is to the credit of the service that hitherto there has been nothing to besmirch its honor. Not only in the transmission of letters and telegrams but in various other functions that it performs for other departments, it handles a great, deal of confidential matter and little argument is needed to show how inconvenient it would be to have Labor Alliance associates and spies possessing the full run of the offices throughout the Dominion. The thing must not be, and it is the duty of the Government to immediately combat the pernicious movement with an ultimatum that the rorerendum decision must be annulled. The people ol the Dominion will stand by the Ministry in a demand that Its public services should be kept free from political bias —free from contamination with any organisation whose propaganda and chie! claim to existence are that it is able to throttle the community with paralysing strikes. The post and- telegraph.officers may have legitimate grievances, bu* they are going the. wrong about about ii if this is their endeavor, to right them. By alliance with the direct actionists and disloyal red-fiaggers they will forfeit sympathy and shake public confidence. They are distinctly lowering the status of their profession. Such a decision would probably not have been come to had more care been exercised in the past in making appointments to the service—had the door not been open too freely to the admission of persons who temperament ally are inclined to agitate and make trouble. One effect of the present crisis will be that more discrimination must he exercised in this matter, also that the system of promotions will have to he revised so that merit and faithfulness of service shall have more genera] recognition than has been the case in the past. DEAR TO P. A OCO. There, has been some agitation in the Homeland against the fact that, three years after the war people are still paying war prices for lobacco. Whilst the price has, roughly, been doubled since 1914 the smoker notices (he coincidence that the profits of the big concerns which engross the bulk of the trade have also more than doubled in the same period. Despite the depression, the imperial Tobacco . Co. last year made a profit, of £6,927,64.1, against £3,354,476 in 1913, whilst its exporting relative, the British American Tobacco Company improved its profit from £2,151,836 in 1913 to £4,323,481 in 1921. As the Daily Mail states, there is a good margin here for relief to the consumer. The duty oi per ounce imposed by the British Government docs not justify a charge of a shilling an ounce and more "over the counter. Manufacturers may be loth to admit that the cost of tobacco leaf—the raw material—has fallen considerably, while wages and general costs also show a reduction. But the facts arc stubborn. Tobacco is the poor man's solace, and the paper urges, as others of its contemporaries arc doing, that some concerted action should be taken to compel the huge monopoly which controls the people's "smokes,'' to be satisfied with lessened returns. Retailers, it is pointed out, are not, making similar profits. Their selling prices are strictly regulated, hi order to make Id. profit on a certain extensively advertised brand, usually sold in small packets, they have to sell lib of tobacco. The retailers would welcome a reduction in order to stimulate trade, which during the past year specially, has shown a bi 8 drop. The complaint from Britain might easily be extended to Australia and New Zealand, for the balance sheet of (he British Tobacco Company (Australia) Ltd., which has just been published, discloses a profit for 1921 or £789,817. In recent years' there nas been continuous increase in the sums cleared by this organisation, and dlvi-

donds arc maintained at VA per cent. ordinary and 6 ]'<')• cent, preference, wliieli with I lie adjustment of capital which took place last year when £750,CCO of undivided funds was capitalised, gives altogether unjustifiable returns to the stockholders .in this big monopoly. Smokers have the remedy in their own hands, perhaps, by abstention from smoking, but the habit of indulgence in the weed so clings that it is not likely anything in the nature of a smokers' strike would be successful. The people of Italy, who are oppressed by the Vankoen organisation in the same manner, have several times lately declared a ban on cigarettes, hut whilst great, numbers of people abstained for several weeks from smoking, the efforts proved not very successful and eventually collapsed. The only other remedy is Governmental action and that possibly would lead to international complications such as those recently arising in connection with an attempt to cope with the American .Meat Trust.