a Cook Islands Tour

More "Investigators" For a Cook Islands Tour NZ Trade-Union Preoccupation With the Group

rpHE Cook Islands is to have another ]l visitation —this time, semi-official instead of official. According to the New Zealand press of June 11, disputes and complaints over labour and other conditions in the Cook Islands will be investigated by the secretary of the Federation of Labour, Mr. K. Baxter, and the Seamen’s Union representative, Mr.

T. F. Anderson, of Auckland. The mat ter has been discussed with the New Zea land Government and approval given for the trip.

Details of the projected Trade Union excursion to the Cooks were discussed at the annual conference of the New Zealand Federation of Labour which was held in Wellington in June.

At the same conference, a representa tive of the Cook Islands Progressive As sociation. claiming that the Association was backed by three-fifths of the Cook Islanders, demanded adequate recogni tion. It was claimed also that Cook Islanders were finding great difficulty in having their complaints heard.

In recent months, Mr. A. G. Osborne.

Parliamentary Under Secretary, visited the Cooks on behalf of the New Zealand Government and with the express pur pose of investigating Cook Island griev ances. He returned to New Zealand at the end of May and was to report to the Dominion Prime Minister. (See page 30J In addition, during June, a wages tri bunal was held in Rarotonga bv a Judge of the New Zealand Industrial Court (Mr.

J. A. Gilmour). A report on this tri bunal is to be found elsewhere in this issue.

BOTH these gentlemen were sent to the Cook Islands bv the New Zea land Labour Government. It is hard to find any adequate reason why the

Group, which is having its fair share of restlessness, should be further dis turbed by the investigations of represen tatives of New Zealand trade unionists.

The complaint made by the Progres sive Association, that the Cook Islanders are having difficulties in getting their complaints heard, also seems rather wide of the truth.

The Cook Islands, and everything per taining thereto, have been taken up en thusiastically by the New Zealand press in recent months, and many columns of matter describing' their orange industry, their wharf troubles, their labour dis putes, and visits of New Zealand inves tigators, etc., have been published ad nauseum.

Whatever ails the Cook Islands, at pre sent, no doubt can be sured from within, with nothing more drastic than time, plus sympathetic encouragement from the New Zealand Government. The interest of outsiders, when it manifests itself in meddling in matters about which they know little, is one of the curses of the present day.

"Sweated" Labour?

A HOWL of another description was also registered at the recent Fede ration cf Labour conference in Wellington. This one, surprisingly enough, concerned the importation into New Zealand of clothing made by “cheap labour” in Rarotonga.

Unions complained that this clothing was being placed on the New Zealand market in competition with the local article.

No indication was given as to the type of clothing, or quantity allegedly im ported and sold in the Dominion. But one presumes that it is made in the Group by the non-unionist two-fifths who do not support the Auckland Pro gressive Association.

No matter how deeply trade-unionism to-day concerns itself with the welfare of others, in its ultimate analysis it still exists for one thin^ —self-aggrandisement and the advantage of one section of the people at the expense of all other sec tions.