CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1921, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE WATERSIDERS’ CONFERENCE. (To the Editor.) Sir, —In your sub-leader of the 23rd inst., I note that you have, amongst other things connected with the Labor movement, misrepresented the delegates attending the annual conference of the j New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Fed- | eration, inasmuch as you have a stateI ment that the delegates sit in confer- | ence only four hours per day. On bej half of the delegates I desire to inform • you that this statement is contrary to ; fact, as the official hours of sitting are j six per day, but this does not include ; committee work which the delegates , have to undertake. Since the conference has been sitting it is safe to say I that the average hours worked by each | delegate are well over eight per day if i we take the hours sitting in committee into consideration. The editor of a ' daily paper should know that a conference with the volume of business before ‘it such as that before the Waterside • Workers’ Federation Conference must of ; necessity have a good deal of committee i work, and before publishing a statement ! such as appeared in your paper, the least you should have done was to have made enquiries from the officials regarding the hours of sitting. The delegates have noted during their stay in New’ Plymouth many statements published in your paper regarding the Labor movement, and might I be allowed to express the opinion that if these statements are as far removed from fact as that which referred to the hours which the delegates are engaged in performing the work of the men they represent. I am afraid that they can not go back to their home ports and inform their fellow workers that a policy of journalistic accuracy is a feature of the Taranaki Daily News.—l am, etc., JAS. j Secretary N.Z. Waterside Workers’ Federation. November 24, 1921. [We are truly sorry if we have done our Labor visitors an injustice, but the statement had been previously published that the hours were to bo four daily, and we naturally accepted it as correct. But that is a small matter compared with the utter futility of a body of rnen who are professedly desirous of the ‘■emancipation of Labor” from the bondage of wicked capitalists wastrng day after day over matters that any ordinary body could deal with in a couple of days. Take in contrast the conference of the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce at Christchurch. They started their proceedings on Wednesday and finished last night, dealing in that time not with straight-out questions like the relations of employees ana employers, and the conditions of their work, but wfth difficult and involved matters of real importance to the welfare of the Dominion. If our Labor friends evinced the samp seriousness and interest in the work at the waterfront as they do in their conference deliberations, the cost of handling goods would come down appreciably, and they would thereby' confer a big benefit upon the community.—Ed.]