THE AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OF RAILWAY SERVANTS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 7 April 1908, Page 5

THE AMALGAMATED SOCIETY OF RAILWAY SERVANTS.

IMPORTANT ISSUES

In view of the statements made at a meeting of the Wanganui branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of New Zealand, held on Saturday night, and reported in our .yqsday's issue, a representative of the " Chronicle" took the opportunity yesterday of asking Mr. W. A. Veitch, the President of the Society, to throw some more light on what appears to bo a peculiarly important episode in the history of the Sojciety. Mr. Veitoh said the matter was one which primarily, and indeed wholly, concerned the railway men, but he presumed that, as public servants, their interests were to some extent also the interests of the public. The trouble ventilated locally at Saturday's meeting really emanated from the fact that the last conference of the Society's delegates .had-not seen fit to renew.the contract then existing between the Society and Mr. J. T. 'M. Hornsby for printing, publishing, and editing the " Railway Review." This, to laymen, might appear a somewhat trivial circumstance upon which to imperil the existence of the Society; but neverthelesSj in his final issue, Mr. Hornsby had seen fit to make certain seriously deprecatory reflections upon the -Executive, arid to advise the members to resign from the Society. In his (Mr. Veitch's) opinion, . this action amounted, whether intentionally or not he could not say, to an attempt to break up the Society, for a motive which he thought was selfobTioua. In saving this, he added, he might be doing Mr. Hornsby an injustice, but he felt that it was. a deduction which any reasonable man could 'fairly draw from the circumstances. He had no wish to hurt'Mr. Hornsby's feelings, nor did he desire to comment adversely on that gentleman's management of their journal; but ;he did sincerely desire to prevent .the wrecking of an organisation which had done so much for the railway men of the Dominion. The purport of his address to the men of this section was, in effect, an appeal to them, and indeed to the whole service, not to take Mr. Hornsby's advice, but to inquire into mattters for themselves arid to wait and see whether the work of the new Executive justified the Charges which had been made by that gentleman. Asked as to the policy of. the Executive, Mr. Veitch said that it was to be a policy of vigilant watchfulness and earnest advocacy; but not of virulent abuse arid bombastic bluster. The Executive felt that their efforts on -behalf of the men would be more effective, and productive :of much greater benefit to all grades of tne service, if they worked in accordance with the tenets of courtesy rather than in compliance with the bull-baiting: ethics of the .controversial prize-fring. V . :