P. AND T. OFFICERS,

Southland Times, Issue 19511, 10 May 1922, Page 4

P. AND T. OFFICERS,

It looks as if the executive of the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association has recognised the force of the Government’s objections to the organisation’s affiliation with the Alliance of ( Labour. Obviously the executive could not flatly disobey the injunction of the general body of the Association expressed in the ballot that was recently taken and to refer the question back again to the members at this stage would have put the executive in a very awkward position. By deferring action under the instructions given by the result of the ballot because the Government has put an embargo on the carrying out of those instructions and remitting the issue to parliament, the executive secures a much desired delay which will enable the members to consider the whole question anew, and it will afford an opportunity to the supporters and opponents of the projected affiliation to ventilate their arguments before the public. If we look at the latest development from the practical viewpoint, however, the significance of the executive’s action cannot be misunderstood. The House is not likely to grant the Association’s petition, which means that the Government’s embargo will stand and the organisation will be left in the position it occupies to-day; instructed by the general body of members to perform an act which the Government has forbidden. We do not envy the members of the executive of the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association in their task, but we think that the decision that has just been made public means that all hope of the Alliance of Labour securing the Association as an affiliated member is at an end, and that after the House has had a chance of discussing the question the whole business will fizzle out. The Government should not object to the executive's proposal to appeal to Parliament. It is just as well that the representatives of the people should have a chance of considering the whole question, and as well, too, that the circumstances which led up to the ballot should be discussed on the floor of the House. The Post and Telegraph officers, it cannot be denied, voted on the proposal to affiliate with the Alliance of Labour when they were stirred by what, they considered to be a just ground for grievance and though the effect of the contemplated act was very fully before them before they voted, there can be no doubt that the grievance they laboured under influenced the result of the ballot. Their decision should serve to convince the Government that the officers of the department feel that they have good ground for complaint, and while this sense of injustice remains it is in the interests of the officers and the community that the dispute between the Association and the Departmental heads should be fully threshed out in public. The Association is entitled to say if it cannot affiliate with any outside body, it is entitled to the fullest amount of recognition by the Department, compatible with proper control of departmental affairs. I’he decision of the executive means that the affiliation project is temporarily killed and it is not too much to say that the Government, between now and the time the question comes before Parliament, can effectually settle the matter for all time.