Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1948 IS IT FAIR?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 29, 6 December 1948, Page 4

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1948

IS IT FAIR?

Opposition members of Parliament have rightly protested against the addition of a clause to the Political Disabilities Removal Act ensuring that a ballot taken by a trade union shall be decided upon a bare majorty of the. members voting. The clause, ‘ retained by 29 votes to 27 on a division following a lively debate, was made retrospective to March 1, 1947. Opposition members saw in it an attempt to make it easier for a minority of the conscripted membership of unions to contribute union funds towards the support of a political party, presumably the Labour Party. Whether or not that was the intention of the disputed clause, that is indubitably its ( effect. Mr R. Macdonald '(Government—Ponsonby) said the clause was first brought forward by his own organisation—the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants —because one of the friends of the Opposition poked his nose into the union’s rule?, and found lat, unless a vote was carried by a mojority of the actual membership, any decision to support the Labour Party’s funds was in-' valid. That seems to leave, little doubt that the governing Party, by piloting such a clause through the House, is not at all averse to running its Partv machine on money obtained b> r methods that are at best open to question. Mr R. M. Algie described the principle, if it can be called that, as “thoroughly bad, immoral, unjust and unnatural.” He called it “Hitlerism in a hideous form.”

He is right. That any Party should stoop to this sort of thing to bolster up its rotting foundations is a travesty of democracy deserving of the most emphatic condemnation. Was this, .then, the original and real intention behind compulsory unionism? One cannot help suspecting that it was.

While compulsory unionism lasts—and most of us who really value freedom hope that will not be long—then it should be illegal for any union, as such, to contribute any of its compulsorily collected dues to the funds of any political party. To do,so is to over-ride the democratic rights of those members who do not subscribe to the aims and the beliefs of the party so subsidised.

And it cannot be too strongly emphasised that if there be only

one such dissenter, then he should have the right, under this British flag, to withhold his support from that with which he disagrees. Let trade unionists, farmers, businessmen, lawyers, or anyone else, contribute as much or as little as they please "towards backing their political fancies. That is their right, as individuals in a democratic country. That is their right as sacred as their right to have and express a political opinion. But it is wholly wrong that money extorted from anyone under threat of heavy penalties—and compulsory union fees can be described no other way—should be passed into the coffers of an organisation some of the contributors bright consider to be working against their interests.

There is only one answer now. All conscripted unionists who object to this. interference with their democratic rights should attend all union meetings and make their protests heard, and heeded. They should agitate for the inclusion in every union’s rules of a clause making it impossible for any of the union’s funds to be contributed to any political party. And, whether they be supporters of the Government or th£ Opposition, if they are truly democratic, they should back up those Members of Parliament who have protested against this iniquity.