The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1939. BOYCOTTING AN INDIVIDUAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 49, 28 February 1939, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1939. BOYCOTTING AN INDIVIDUAL

"J7XISTING legislation is not sufficiently comprehensive to enable the Government to prevent, or restrict, a boycott,” the ex-Minister for Labour has declared. He then goes on to say that the practice of the boycott cannot be approved by anyone, and for this much of condemnation the Dominion must be thankful. Nevertheless, the situation that has developed is an unsatisfactory one from a social, and from a political, standpoint. The facts as made known are that Mr. Frank Goldberg, an advertising agent, took part professionally in the National Party’s political campaign. In so doing he wrote, said, or did, something which caused some people offence. What constituted the offending statement or action has not, as far as the “Chronicle” knows, been made public. Whatever it was, however, would have had to have been extreme, indeed, to have gone beyond some Ministerial statements. The election, however, was iron by the Labour Party receiving an overwhelming majority of the votes cast, so apparently • Mr. Goldberg’s labours for the National Party did not injure the Labour Government and Party in the eyes of the public. Labour, therefore, had no need to worry about his efforts. On his return to New Zealand, however, he finds that his presence in hotels is an embarrassment to the hotel managements and they are powerless to do otherwise than to request him to leave the hotel. The coercion, be it noted, is on the hotel managements and it is desirable to enquire in how far such coercion has been exercised on hotel-keepers in the past and why they must bow to it to-day. It is also desirable to enquire into the source of this coercion. As one trades union secretary observed, it is undesirable to take the statements of an aggrieved party as presenting the whole of the facts, and it is desirable that whatever the fads may be. they should be discovered and brought to light. The position is unsatisfactory, particularly from the standpoint of the Labour Parly itself, for it appears to establish a precedent for victimising a man for his political activities and opinions, an activity against which the Labour Party of all parties should resolutely set ils face.