WHY SECRET?
Sir, —Why is the .superfluous and undesirable, not to say illiterate, adjective "secret" so persistently tacked on to tho term "ballot" in Now Zealand at tho present time? Why, above, all. is i" so strongly intrenched in tho Rrlme Minister's new I.C. and A. Act? The dictionaries arc unequivocal in thoir definition of "ballot" as relating to tho system of secret voting: the secret is already in the ballot. They state'that the term is only given the more general sense in such loose usage as. no ono would wish to see perpetuated in the law. of this laad. The matter is uioro important than may at first sight appoar, for even Labour's best friends m ust admit that. til© labour' movement is much swayed by catchwords = and tho new use of "secret" in. this- connection is being fastened on as a provocation of tho cry of "scab," which has had 60 much to do with the intimidation of workers •in tho present trouble. The mere fact that the UsajjaJs new makes this possible, and offers opportunity quite needlessly to tho unscrupulous demagogues whose business is "ktbour movement." Let tho qualification""secret" be dropped, and lot it be proclaimed without ceasing that "ballot" artd "democracy" are terms inextricably intertwined'in the history of civilisation:
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19131118.2.78.3
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1909, 18 November 1913, Page 9
Word count
Tapeke kupu
213WHY SECRET? Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1909, 18 November 1913, Page 9
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in