The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA" SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1921. THE CIVIL SERVICE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18329, 12 November 1921, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA" SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1921. THE CIVIL SERVICE.

A matter of grave public import is raised in an article published in another column under the authority of the New Zealand Welfare League. That organisation has been responsible for a great deal of enlightening propaganda during the last few years, and those who have given careful and unbiassed consideration to the League’s views on industrial problems will, we think, agree that they have reflected an earnest desire to promote the best interests of all classes of the community. In this particular matter the League is equally impartial, its one concern being the well-being of the community as a whole. Whilst entirely agreeing that it is a good thing for the employees of the State to organise in defence of their own legitimate interests, and fully recognising their right to do so, the Welfare League sees a very grave danger to the public in the “maiifestations of a movement in the direction of interference from outside with the Civil Service of our Dominion.” The movement alluded to is the endeavour that is being made to link up Civil Service irganisations such as the Post and Telegraph Association with an outside body named the Alliance of Labour. The peril indicated by the League, a very real peril we think, is that such an alliance would shatter public confidence in the State Departments, and especially those of them which, like the Post and Telegraph Department, are constantly handling as a trust matters of a strictly private and confidential name. The reality of this peril is made obvious by the knowledge that alliance with an outside organisation, whether industrial or capitalistic, must inevitably involve the employees of the State in the affairs of the outside organisation, with the result that the latter would come to have a measure of control over the former. In other words, the employees, of say the Post and Telegraph Department, might find themselves in the difficult position of having to take sides against the public in an Issue between the interests of a sectional organisation and the interests of the community as a whole. The possibility of such a deplorable

happening is not to be lightly contemplated, and the Welfare League is to be commended for having drawn attention to the evident need of safeguarding the Civil Service from the threatened danger. The League's warmest commendation will, we believe, come from the Civil Servants themselves, the great majority of whom we feel sure are strongly averse to allowing themselves to be dominated by industrial extremists with whose policy and methods they cannot possibly have anything in common.