SAVOURS OF POLITICAL BIAS

Chronicle (Levin), 11 June 1947, Page 3

SAVOURS OF POLITICAL BIAS

-Press Association

• — COMMUNISTS CHALLENGE MR. FRASER

Bv Telearavh ■

WELLINGTON, June 10. The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, had claimed that Conmmnists had said openly that they were out to cause disruption by making demands and causing all sorts of diflieulties for a political purpose, said the Wellington district eonimittee of the Communist Party in a statement this afteraoon. ''We challenge Mr. Fraser to produce any evidence to support- this statement which is in direet contradietion to the policy of the Communist Party as outlined in its ofiicial publications, " the statement said, adding that the greatest strikes in New Zealand history — maritime strike and 1913 strike — both took place years before the foundation of the Communist Party in New Zea- • land. "It is not the Communists who are responsible for industrial unrest," the statement eontinues, "but the antisoeial nature of the system itself. The latest attempt to create a Eed scare is obviously a stunt inspired from overseas to use the Communist bogey as a weapon for destroying the Labour movement .generally. " • 'The -statement ardds that recent antiLabour legislation in the United Sta'tes was a typieal example of this as this legislation exeluded Communists from becoming elected leaders of trade unions. Was this what Mr. Fraser had in piind.-when hect.alked of applyipg^ ^i?' cipi>b(^lb hpEubp# ' ^lr; .Fr^set^s^lnCJi, s aV'bufeti 5f ". ;§btur mv^isi^trliey ing* tli^; soqial order but regarded this as being possible 'only when the great majority of the people demanded it. The party di-d. not desire strife or bloodshed."