TRADE UNION RULE.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20184, 3 May 1937, Page 7

TRADE UNION RULE.

MR OOBBE’B ALLEGATION. ARBITRATION COURT JUDGE. .. (Special to Times.) PALMERSTON N., Sunday. Concern at recent public utterances by prominent members of tbe Labour Party was expressed by the Hon. J. G. Cobbe. M.P. for Oroua, speaking at Fending. " The Rev. Clyde Carr, then national president of the Labour Party, speaking at Timaru on December 2, uttered a deliberate threat that certain persons occupying important public positions would, to use his own words, be sent down the road,” said Mr Cobbe.

“ This was apparently a threat that unless the Judge of the Arbitration Court carries out the wishes of the unions he may be transferred, and it publlo works engineers insist upon greater efficiency than the unions approve of, then the engineers may lose their Jobs. In other words, public officials placed in important Judicial and administrative positions are warned that Justice and efficiency are not profitable. A leading newspaper has very correctly described this speech as a general menace to freedom and a step toward dictatorship.

“ The fact must be recognised that even with its big majority the present Government does not govern New Zealand,” he added. The Auckland freezing dispute shows plainly that New Zealand, a primary producing country, w governed by city trado unions, from which the Government takes orders. IT the unions do not agree with a judgment of a Court ot law the Government will alter the law to suit them.”