WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 2 July 1920, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE PROPOSED NATIONAL CONFERENCE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Mr. W. Pryor, the general secretary of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, has a long letter in the Dominion recently setting out in detail the reasons which influenced the executive of the Federation in declining the invitation of the Labour organisations to a national industrial conference. The general tenor of these reasons was indicated by the- unofficial statement made by Mr. Pryor a few days ago, and it is necessary to quote only the concluding paragraph of his letter to give a good idea of the present attitude of the Federation towards organised Labor: "So far as the New Zealand Employers' Federation is concerned," it runs, "it is | compelled to decline to be a party to a conierence under present conditions, and it believes it will have the force of public opinion behind it in carrying on the work of improving the relations between employers and workers in their own establishments, in the hope that in due course, the time may come when a national conference might be held without any risk of disaster to the trades and industries of the Dominion." That, apparently, must be accepted as the last word of the Federation on the subject, for the present; and there is no doubt it represents the views clearly enough of a majority of its members. THE OTHER VIEW. The Dominion is unable to regard the ! reasons set out by Mr. Pryor for the Federation's refusal to accept the invitation to the conference as sound and logical. It aska its readers to believe that the secretary has made out "a very poor case" for his principals. "Even if it led to no agreement to co-operate in developing better and mpre efficient industrial organisation," it argues, "the conference might yet mark a great turning point by giving the public a ready key to a sound understanding of the industrial situation. The whole fault to be found with the employers in their refusal to agree to a national conference is that they are neglecting the most effective means of marshalling public opinion in support of a sound policy of industrial reform." It emphasises this point again and again in it* attempt, to show that the real purpose of tlie_ Labor extremists is "not to represent the workers, but to arouse endless antagonism between them and their employers," and ends up by reasserting that the outcome of a national industrial conference, in educating and enlightening the public, would be highly beneficial, irrespective of any immediate approach made by the parties in industry to agreement and co-operation. PUBLIC OPINION.' Naturally the "extremists" among the workem are keenly enjoying the difference of opinion between the employers and what they are pleased to call the "capitalistic organ." Nothing else, they say, could go so far towards justifying their repeated protests against the "arrogance of the employers" as the Dominion's rebuke of the Federation. "It proves," one of them said this morning, "that public opinion is turning our way, and that the Employers' Federation is no longer regarded as the inspired dictator of all that is good and just for the workers. Its refusal to meet us in open conference should be the last nail in the coffin of its bolsteredup reputation." Talk of this kind is intended, of course, only to tickle the ears of the public. As a matter of fact, organised Labor has been at least as shy of full publicity in the past as organised capital has been. But it would be quite true to say there are quite a number of people, unattached to either side, who would have welcomed the proposed conference as a means of obtaining definite information concerning the difference between the two parties.