Westland Beer Boycott

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 22, 17 February 1948, Page 5

Westland Beer Boycott

Mr Sullivan’s Comments On Unionism’s Victory “The Labour Party’s daily newspaper has, at long last, revealed the official policy of the Party in relation to the beer boycott in Westland,” said Mr W. Sullivan, M.P. for Bay of Plenty, in a statement to the Beacon yesterday. Mr Sullivan / has just received a copy of the “Southern Cross,” dated the twelfth, in which he said it was stated that organised unionism had gained a victory in forcing Westland hotelkeepers to reduce the price of beer below the level established by the Price Tribunal. “The matter is of particular interest to me,” said Mr Sullivan, “inasmuch as I spent some time in Westland during the recent by-election, when the Labour Party candidate, and Parliamentary speakers, could not be induced to make any comment about the beer boycott, although, now that the by-election is over, the Labour Party rushes into print in praise of what it terms a victory for its supporters. , “From our point of view, the issue was clear. It was whether trade unions, and the Communist-dominat-ed Trades Council, were to be handed the power to dictate to workers how they should spend their leisure time and how much they should pay for goods they bought.

“Individual members of the community—everyone, in fact—have every right to decide whether they shall buy a certain commodity at the price at which the owner is willing to sell.- But, as regards the beer boycott, the Communists decided that no worker was to be allowed to pay the price which had been established by the Government itself, 7d per glass. In furtherance of that plan, workers in the coal mines, who refused to be subjected to .Communist and Labour Party dictation, were thrown out of employment, were denounced as scabs, and were sent down the road!” Mr Sullivan added that it was disquieting to notice that the Government was apparently determined to undermine the Price Tribunal while, at the same time, it was lauding the efforts of the Tribunal to dampen down the effects of Mr Nash’s disastrous inflationary policy. “The Price Tribunal set the price for beer in Westland,” he said, “and now that the Tribunal has been successfully defied, Labour hails this as a momentous victory. All this is indicative of the muddlement which has characterised the Labour Government ever since it assumed office. It tells one story to the general public, and an entirely different one to its own supporters.”