A WRONG PRINCIPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 April 1921, Page 4

A WRONG PRINCIPLE.

The Labor Party, and Labor unions gen-, -orally, have been exercised in mind quite a lot lately over the action of the Railway Department in refusing permission to Mr. Mcllvride to absent himself from Ills duties in order to take a Itjmd in a political contest, and sundry resolutions condemnatory of the Department have been passed. The action of the Department is held to be an undue interference with the political liberties of its employees. The Department cannot help itself in the matter, for the Act specifically provides that no civil servant, permanent or temporary, ,is qualified to be a candidate for Parliament, and if he desires to be he simply hah to resign his position, and, if unsuccessful, to make application in the usual way for reinstatement. It is, the public will readily perceive, a wise provision. No man can .serve two masters. He cannot criticise a service of which he himself is a member, and he places himself in a peculiar position in criticising the Minister or administrators of a Department in which, he is an employee. The Labor Party should expect no different treatment' from the Railway Department in this matter than from a private firm. Would it be reasonable to expect a private firm to permit an employee to drop out for a month 01 so and contest an election, and then, if he were unsuccessful, to take him back again? It might be that his absence would cause the firm considerable inconvenience, and naturally they would have to take steps to fill the position with someone who could be depended upon not to leave them in the lurch. The Labor Party are asking for what is entirely wrong in principle, and the public would do well to resist their efforts to. intimidate the Railway Department. If they had their way they would undermine the discipline of the whole civil service.