No Reinstatement For Mr. Holmes

Chronicle (Levin), 21 January 1949, Page 4

No Reinstatement For Mr. Holmes

WELLINGTCN, Jan. ''20. The Public Service' 'Comttiissioii' has refused tfo altex^its decision to annul the appointment of Mr. Cecil .Holmes, forrnerly a lilm director at the National Pilm Unit and- one ?f -the central figures in the "Holmes letter" incirlent. Representatives of the New Zealand Pubjic Service Association met the commission today and asked for the reinstateinent of.Mr, Ilolmes. The commission heard submissions from the ' dejegation and also received Mr. Holmes himself. In a statement later, the commission said that the fact that Mr. Holmes was stated to be a "member of the Communist Party and of the Public Service Association,. was immaterial and irrelevant. .-"What is in point, '* said the commission, "is that.(l) it was reported in the press and in the Public Service Journal that a large meet.ing of public servants had expressed their intention pf attending a stopwork meeting if the Government did not, within a month, agree to certain demands; (2) the commission in its official circular of November I, 1948, reminded all pxibiie servants that this would not be ailowed; and (3) the letter signed by Mr. Holmes states that he was calling a stopwork. meeting and accompanying draft .resolutions ref erred to a deliance of the commission 's ban. "The action taken, therefore, in ending Mr. Holmes 's employment, has nothing to do with his belonging to either the Communist Party or Public Service Association. The same standard of diseipline will be required of a public servant wliether a member or not of any politieal party 'and whether a member. of not of .the Public Service Asso-' ci ation. ' '