The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1916. ENEMIES IN OUR MIDST

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2963, 29 December 1916, Page 1

The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1916. ENEMIES IN OUR MIDST

Some remarkable disclosures were | made by the Prime Minister of the' Commonwealth in moving in tho Federal Parliament tho second reading 'of the Bill for. the suppression of unlawful associations. From time to time we have heard 1 a good deal, about the activities in Australia of ! the organisation known las the but tho story of its crimes as summarised by Mr. Hughes is even worse than the .cable messages have indicated.

The criminal charges brought against members of tho organisation, stated Mr. Hughes, included the murder of a .policeman,, forging, and uttering bank notes, arson, tho cutting of electric wires on the warship Brisbane, while one of the Gov r ornmenfs agents was shot, but not killed- '

Liberal Oppositionists (in surpriso) Where was that?

The Prime Minister said that members must accopt his statement as .being beyond all question. The headquarters of the banknote conspiracy i was the headquarters of the 1.W.W., and in- their efforts to get Barker, , tho editor of "Direct Action," out of gaol, the membors of the organisation destroyed a great deal of property. Providentially, they did; not destroy that human lifo they might easily have done. There might easily have "been • a holocaust. (Hear, hear.) Government agents had attended meetings of the 1.W.W., at which every man was armed with automatic pistols. Then, again, King's name ivas hooted at a meeting in Sydney the other day. Add. to all this the fact that a large number of these persons were foreigners, a fair 'number of them-Ger-mans, and they wonld 'read , into ;the operations of the society tho suggestion, if no more, that the association was being used for a purpose Against the Allies in this war.

The growth of this criminal organisation has been encouraged,by tho indifference displayed to its activities by the authorities. Its preachings were so extreme that there was a tendency; on tho part. of soberminded.people to laugh at them and treat them as the outpourings of illbalanced fanatics' unworthy of serious attention. Australia is now paying the, penalty of this neglect to deal firmly and promptly with "the scum of Europe and America," as Mb. Hughes styled the leaders of the movement, have been preaching the vicious anarchical doctrine' that any method, any act, however criminal, was permissible, so long as it might help forward the cause of the . I.W.W. That cause might be broadly stated as'a war on society—that is, a war against the people and their institutions. But behind this organisation and high in the counsels of its leaders are the agents of' our enemies; Germans anxious to cripple the efforts of Australia in tho war; anxious - to do injury to the people of Australia because they are fighting with Britain and her Allies against Germany.

The position in Australia has become so serious owing to the activities of this criminal organisation that it has been necessary to pass special legislation to enable the police to cope with it. Numerically it is not formidable, but apart from its criminal activities it is a, poisonous influence in the community, promoting dissension; seeking to encourage industrial strife; inciting opposition iio the attempts of the Government and the recruiting agencies to secure enlistments for the Commonwealth Reinforcements; and generally striving by every possible means to prejudice the people of Australia against the war efforts of those in authority. That many of the most active of the agents of the I.W.W. are assisted and encouraged by Gorman gold may bo taken for granted. As Mr. Hughes has pointed out, it is one of the methods of Germany to seek to promote internal dissension in other nations —she sends her paid agents abroad for that purpose, striving to undovraine and corrupt that national

.spirit which binds a people together, breeds a love of country, and makes a nation strong. So far as New Zealand is concerned, tho I.W.W. has not made any marked progress. Here and there Its vicious teachings have made their presence ! felt amongst a very small section o£ labour extremists, and in times of industrial trouble its • hangers-on will be found secretly inciting to sabotage and violence, but Australia has proved a far more fertile field for its activities. Still it is at work here. A few days ago we had brought under our notice a specimen of the literature it is circulating in Wellington. The specimen in question purported to have been printed in Sydney, and our informant stated that in his neighbourhood this particular effort to promote class strife had been freely distributed. The police, we have no doubt, will keep an alert eye on any attempt to develop this campaign. Tho German element in the 1.W.W., under the cloak of labour sympathies, may be expccted to attempt to arouse antagonism to the Military Service Act. These men do not appear in the open, but they work by underhand means, circulat-' ing lie's, distorting the issues at stake, and seeking to obscure the fact that, unless we win ' this war everyone except the Germans will be worse off than when the war started. The exposures made by the head of the Commonwealth Government of the efforts of German agents to defeat the Referendum on the question of universal military service should not be lost on us here.