EXIT M'CULLOUGH!

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8558, 18 October 1907, Page 4

EXIT M'CULLOUGH!

There are few level-headed people in the Dominion who will be found to sympathise with Mr McCullough, the tinsmith in the Addingtr.n Railway Workshops, who was suspended some lime ago by his Department for taking an active part in a political meeting, and who has since been dismissed. It is difficult to understand that Mr McCullough was unaware of the rule which precludes employees of the Government from publicly associating themselves with political questions; but assuming that he was ignorant of the rule his recalcitrancy became contumacious when he rejected the option of not again offending as a condition of his retention in the service. From motives of his own, which no one has a right to judge, he decided that he could not subscribe to the rules under which he was employed, and the head of his Department was left no alternative but to dismiss him. Loyalty to his employer is a thing which every employer has a right to look for in the employee, and there ought not to be needed rules to guide the employee as to where loyalty ends, and disloyalty begins; so that ignorance respecting printed rules could be no excuse for the attitude Mr McCullough took up. If he sought to pose as a martyr he may possibly bo successful for a time, but in the end he may find to his sorrow that he has killed the goose that laid the golden egg. "The evils that men do live aftsr them"; and while Mr McCullough may come to the fore as one of the bubbles of Labour agitation, others may be encouraged by the spurious popularity this man has gained to try the same experiment with disastrous results to themselves and those dependent upon them. It is. to be hoped that the Government, having taken a proper stand on the question of State servants interfering in politics, when the interference is against the Administration, wi'.l see to it that those pul lie servants who openly espouse the cause of the Government of the day will also come under the ban of Ministers. We are aware of recent instances where State employees have taken an active part in upholding their departments without being subjected even to censure, and such conduct should be considered as reprehensible as the action of State employees per contra.