Secret Police Suggests Mr. Lewin

Chronicle (Levin), 1 February 1949, Page 8

Secret Police Suggests Mr. Lewin

WELLINGTON, Jan. 31. The (lelegat.es to the emergency con .ferenee of the Publie Serviee Associa,.ion were forcefullv told by the presLdent (Mv. J. P. Lewin) today that .joiiee and St-ate methods were converting this couutry into a poeket Germany. flie eonference, he said, might ask itselt' whetlier secret police were at work. Delegates fro-.n all parts of New Zeaiand will deliberate for two days aua coinorrow afternoon will see Mr. Fraser. Mr. Lewin maintained, that publie servants should receive at least 50s .a vveek extra to restore p're-war purchasing po-wer. As the public servants' salarv campaign grew in volume and temper and censure of the Government | and aroused the sympathy of the public, he said, it beeame necessary for the Government to discredit it alraii costs. The responsible, but democrati v-ally-directed, action of the young de partmental representative, . Mr. G. Holmes, who, as far as the strategy of the Government was concerned, was most conveniently a Communist — some.liink not lilced by public servants— was played up in an unscrupuious eli'ort to discredit him. "The discrediting of your assoeiation's claims and the dismissal of Mr. Holmes, Communist or not, represent an attack upon the riglit of trade unionists to organise. It is the Public Serviee Association today. It can weii be trade unionism in general totnorrow. The fact that publie servants in general have no sympathy with communisfh, and the .fact that we of the uational executive of the Public Sercice Association have gone on record in declaring the association 's lack of sympathy with the Communist Party do not alfect the trade union principies at stakje. The aetion of the Public Serviee Commission in taking advantage of a legal loophole to discuss Mr. Holmes without a charge, an inquiry ,or any recourse to the Appeal Board, has aroused g'reat resentment throughout the Publie Serviee and in the. mind-> of the public regardless of whether or not they detest Communists. " ]Mr. Lewin continued that the eonference might ask itself the questiou: "Hoes the incident of the Holmes letter confirm the;' suspicions that tliere is a secret police in -New Zealandf,' [f the eonference answered that- in the aftirmative this further question would be posed: " Did the secret police do this job unaided or did it have the assistance of a senior publie servant?" Whether a royal commission should be demanded to inquire into the police and State methods used in the Holmes case was another question the confer sence might consider. "The deliberations of the eonference after.Mr. LewiiUs address were takeu in eommittee. ■ - •