OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1941, Page 7

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

HARVEST WORKERS (To the Editor.) Sir, —I trust in common fairness to the "other side,” you will be generous enough to permit me to reply to what appears to me as well as to many other union members in this district a very unjustifiable attack upon one of our union officials, who I know is held in very high esteem by the rank and file in the district. To describe him as being "truculent” (which word, according to Collins’s Dictionary means fierce, savage, barbarous, of ferocious aspect, cruel, destructive, ruthless) —surely Mr Cunningham doesn’t mean this! Or perhaps he doesn’t know the true meaning of the word. Unfortunately for the official he never had an opportunity to state the actual facts of the case, which I am sure would have proved the very opposite regarding the treatment accorded to the men concerned. Granted, there are too many unions and union, officials, but this is largely the fault of the members themselves who will not attend even an annual meeting where every opportunity would be given and is given them to discuss these matters. As regards the learned magistrate’s remark: "That there is a tendency, however, to use unionism in harassing Labour in order to get funds for ununions," I regret to add that I entirely disagree with him. Where would the workers be today if they had no union? I wonder. —Yours, etc.. FAIR PLAY. Masterton, March 15.