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Chronicle (Levin), 15 December 1949, Page 6

Received Wednesday, 7 p.m. SYDNEY, Dec. 14. The determiaation of the MenziesFadden Government to ban the Ooanmunist Party and place its assets in the hands of a receiver may result in a major industrial upheaval throughout Australia within a few weeks of the Government taking oflice. Mr. Menzies has stated his intention not only of legally ohliterating the Oommunisty Party, but of removing all^ icnown Communists and fellow-travel-xers from the Government service and from oflice in trade unions. This has provoked a violent reaction from uriionxsts of all shades of political opinion. The president of the Communist Party, Mr. E. Dixon, has stated that the party will eontinue to operate, legally or illegally. The State president of the Australian Labour Party, Mr. J. A. Ferguso'n, who is also New South, Wales secretary of the Australian Eailways Union, and Mr. J. Ke-nny, assistaut secretary of the Trades and Labour •Council, 5 have declared that unions will not tolerate any interference with the demoeratic right to control their own organisations. A more moderate but equally noncooperative view is that of Mr. C. W. Ahderson, president of the New South Wales Trade and Labour Council, who said'that, though the trade union movement was opposed to the principle of banning minorities, it would not line up with the Communists against Mr. Menzies, but neither would it support the new Government. Unionists appear to be divided in opinion as yet about what action thev will take. It is remembered, however, that members of the Communist Party hold key oflice in the Miners' Pederation, the Waterside Workers' Federation, the Seamen's '.Union, the Australian Eailways Union, the Feder-

ated Iron Workers' Association, and the Building Workers' Industrial Union. In the coal strike last winter these men demonstrated their ability to invoke direct action. Now they aro fighting for their industrial lives. Additional weapons to their hands are Mr. Menzies' intentions to implement seeret ballots in union matters, introduce incentive payments in industry, and build up suflieient coal reserves to remove the danger of domination by the Miners' Federation. If the rank and file of these powerful unions are with them, they can at a given signal plunge Australia into a chaos deeper than that whieh prevailed 'last winter. Going Underground? Investigators report that the Communist Party foresaw the result of the election- several monhs ago, and sinee then has completed plans to go underground. The Australian headquarters in Sydney, Mark House, has been sold for £50,000, and the nominal headquarters transferred to a nearby building. It is believed that important flies, ineluding secret membership lists, have been moved to scattered places of eoncealment, following the raids by seeurity aerviee ofiicers earlier this year. Charges have been made that party members have infiltrated into nonCominunist cultural organisations ir prder to use them as bases in undereover work. It is generally believed, however, that the main Communist challenge to the ban must come in the form' of direct action from certair unions. ;