UNION IN ANSWER.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 82, 4 October 1912, Page 3

UNION IN ANSWER.

'Blackball, Sept. 20, 1912. "Hon. W. F. Massey, M.P., Parliament House, Wellington. "Dear Sir, —I beg to acknowledge receipt of your telegram of the 19tb.inst. re jailing of tlie Waihi Unionists, and hasten to reply that your charge if misrepresentation is .quite unfounded. The citizens of Blackball have followed the history of the Waihi strike with "close- attention from its inception, and they are fully convinced that there waß in the first instance no necessity whatever for the flooding of Waihi with police. That act alone they regard as a move to incense the people and provoke trouble in the interests of the gold mine-owners. f "The 'certain men' you refer to as having besn brought before the court were all unionists, and the list included the union officials. The magistrate accepted fclie word of your police as against the word of honest working-men. "Had the unionists consented to ont«r into the bond required by your Government, they would have been admitting their guilt. And this community now learns with indignation and unbounded disgust that the term for which those honest, clean-living meu have been sent- to jail is one year. "The word 'outrage' is far too mild a term to characterise such legal tyranny and siibversion of the law to class interests. "And the citizens of Blackball do not) hesitate to charge your Government with class administration and with having outraged every principle of politic.nl decency in connection with this matter. —I am, yours respectfully, "WALTER ROGERS, Blackball,"