FASCIST TYRANNY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 9

FASCIST TYRANNY

MENACE TO LABOUE

A CONGRESS SPEECH

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, September 5.

Some excitement and enthusiasm was caused at the otherwise dull. Trade Union Congress by a discussion on Fascism. It was introduced by Mr. W. Citrine, the general secretary, who flogged,the dictatorship principle with such fervour that the whole congress rose to cheer him. Tho resolution which Mr. Citrine moved pledged unyielding opposition to the Fascist system and called on the general council to use every possible means to combat Fascism and prevent the militarisation of politics or the drilling and arming of sections of the civilian community. He said that the trade union movement was as much opposed to dictatorship from the Left as from the Right. Communism had ceased to be in almost every land a serious menace to the Labour movement. In this country it was of no moment, and there was no need to waste time in discussing it. Wherever Fascism had been estab--1 lished it had been accompanied by ruthless tyranny. They could not apply statistical tests to the economic effects of Fascism in the various countries because some facts were deliberately suppressed. But in Italy there had been continuous reductions of wages and of the standards'of life. There was, besides, a Budget deficit this year of £66,000,000. Mussolini himself had said that prosperity was not likely to return to Italy. In Germany slaughter and terror continued. The persecution of the Jews went on. Hitler could not abandon tlrat point in his programme, for- it was that which drew the horde of his Brown Army around him. Sixtyfive thousand Jews had left Germany in the last six months. SYMPTOM OF INSECURITY. Referring to the incidents of June 30, Mr. Citrine said that his heart was not torn when murderer slaughtered murderer, but he could not avoid the reflection that those events were symptomatic, not of the stability of which Hitler boasted, but of insecurity. Fascism had passed its zenith, and a change was taking place, through the breaking away of people who made the dictatorship possible. Hitler was going more and more in the direction of the militarists, the Junkers, and the industrialists. Qf\ all hands they saw a decline in the Gorman economy. Labour discipline in Germany today was something very much worse than anything in tho labour camps in this country. On the question of Fascism in this country he said: "We are fully alive to the military character of the Fascist movement here. But do not let us exaggerate it. Whatever the strength of Fascism here, it is clearly apparent now to the public mind that the model of Fascism which has been pursued in this country is identical with the methods pursued abroad. We are right in demanding that the drilling and arming of civilian sections of the community must end. If this is to bo continued, then the government must rocogniso that it cannot confine that right to one section alone. I make no comment on what that involves. All I say is that very dangerous factors are being imported into British political life, and the sooner those in authority recognise that fact the batter it will be for the .peace of inina of. people in this' country."'

Mr. T. O'Brien warned the congress against the dictatorship of Communism as well as Fascism. "To tolerate Communism or wink at its propaganda in our movement while condemning Fascism would lend congress to a charge of blatant hypocrisy," he said.