"HUNNISHNESS AND THE EARMERS' UNION.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 18 July 1916, Page 3

"HUNNISHNESS AND THE EARMERS' UNION.

t'i'o tlio lSditor). J tiir,—The so-ettlled defence set up ' by Ja«. l.'rouisc in yours oi last night is Ino defence at all. it is only the exi lubition of a pathetic belie! hi the ' existence of one which has already been | shot to pieces and has buried Jas. j I'rouse under its ruins. My last tetter j dealt fully with the point raised, but io bring it' to a conclusion T wilT ask Jaw. I'vouse a question: Why did the Farmers' or rather Squatters' Union oppose the registration of the A.P.U.? was ft or was it not to malse the j agreement arrived at two months earI lier "void and useless"—the president's ' phrase? If that action had not been taken by tliem tlio agreement stin would have been enforceable. To say that the dniry workers had no ''right" in the A.P.U. is nonsense; and no one Jinw said so except Jas Prolific. The difference between the Amy Bock case <md tlie A.P.U. case is tliat in her csiise even bad no aiition been taken to dissolve the marriage none eou'*l have taken place; in the A.I'.U. case, had the Squatters' Union not interfered between them and the dairy employers, the agreement would have been valid and* enforceable. Jas. l'rouse and Co. have thrown over the agreement and tTie Arbitration Act and so exposed the dairy industry to all the clangers of industrial disturbance wliich it is the object of the Act to protect it from. I congratulate hiin, liowever, on his citation oF Amy Bock for the defence; she will serve him quite as well .as the other authorities he invoked, and she was no more TaVse than the rest of his arguments.-—I am, etc., J. 'ROBERTSON. i