“A MUDDLE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 65, 8 June 1927, Page 9

“A MUDDLE”

AUSTRALIAN MISSION TO AMERICA “BADLY MISMANAGED” INSULTED EDITOR RETURNS Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. Mr. H. G. Adam, associate editor of the Melbourne “Herald,” who went to New York with the Australian Industrial Mission, is now in Wellington, en route homeward. The mission represented the employers and the labour interests, with newspaper representatives, through whom it was expected the public would be able to get accounts of the mission’s doings, as an official report might not be readily, if ever, available. “The mission,” says Mr. Adam, “was a badly mis-managed muddle. It was sent away in a hurry, without a proper itinerary. It had no proper chairman. Though the mission was shown everything, no opportunity was given for a thorough investigation of the particular problems on which enlightenment was desired. All information seemed to come from the employers’ representatives, and the trade union members of the mission became dissatisfied; but some of them were able to make private inquiries. They felt that the publication of press dispatches in Australia, dealing with their activities, was stealing the mission’s thunder. The mission, again, decided that the press representatives had no standing, so Mr. Adam, in the face of this insult, and the breach of faith with the Commonwealth Government on the part of the mission, refused to go further. When he left New York the members of the mission were in two political camps, and he could not see any likelihood that they would agree on the report, or that the mission would produce anything of value to Australia.