Ban Lifted On Canadian Ships

Chronicle (Levin), 6 September 1949, Page 6

Ban Lifted On Canadian Ships

. WELLINGTON, Sept. 5. The liold-up of tlie two Canadian shix>s in New Zealand was purely political and had no industrial basis and was nothing but an extension of the Comrnunist eold wai from Europe to New, Zealand shores, said Mr. K. McL. Baxter, secretary of the Eederation of Labour, on behalf of the executive, in a statement released tonight. Mr. Baxter said the details of the dispute leading to t-he hold-up of the Tridale in Wellington for 20 weeks and the Ottawa Valley in Auckland for eiglit weeks, had been. cleliberately elouded iri- an„effort to deceive workers in New Zealand into supporting an unwarranter hold-up. Desp^rate effortS were being made to divide- th,e • workers throughout the world and' to break down tried and long trusted workers' organisations, said Mr. Baxter. The World Eederation of Trade Unions began hopefully but was speedily wliite-anted by organised Communist iufiltration aud the experiment to set up a world organisation uuited in the proteetion of workers ' interest, had been abandoned. The Communist remnant of the federation was waging a determined light to create disruption and economie chaos out of which cominunism would seize its opportunity in democratic eountries where it was striving vainly for a toehold. To that end the Communists captured the Canadiam Seamen's Union and began a campaign to strangle the world 's shipping lanes. Except for a small minority, seamen who were members of the C.B.U. had joined up with. the long established democratie Seamen's International Union but instructions had been issued by the secretary of the C.S.U., Mr. T. G. McManus, that as the strike had been settled in home ports and the seamen told to return and work their sliips, the cold war must be t'ought out iu foreign and New Zealand ports~ Mr. Baxter said the New Zealand Federation of Labour had a duty to make full and correct information available to all its workers. After sumrnarising the events leading to the formation of the International Transport Workers' Federation to which New Zealand watersiders an'd other transport workers were affiliated, Mr. Baxter said the C.S.U. had retained its alliliation with the Communist W.F.T.U. whose -allegiance was direetl v linked with the Cominform. The Communist W.F.T.U. was liercely opposing the setting up of a new democratic organisation representative of the British Trades Union Congress, Canadian Trades and Labour Congress, American C.I.O. and A.F.L., and the national trade .union associations of everv free countrv, and had directed the C.B.U. to take an active part in the light. In the light of those facts, the executive oi the New Zealand Federation of Labour had 110 hesitation in requesting its .atiiliations tp lift any hau 011 the ship.concerned, imposed ih ignorance of the true positiou, said Mr. Baxter.