A COMMUNIST PAMPHLET

Hokitika Guardian, 20 August 1931, Page 2

A COMMUNIST PAMPHLET

DISTRIBUTION TO SCHOOL CHILDREN.

NEW movement IN NEW SOUTH 'WALES.

SYDNEY, August 6

It is probable that the militant teachefs who have been responsible for the formation in New South iVales of the Educational Workers’ League, a distinctly ‘-Red” organisation, had something to do with the distribution of a remarkable pamphlet to a number of school children as they left the school grounds last Friday afternoon,; the eve pf the “Anti-Imperialist War Day” (August Ist). The League is making great progress among a certain section of the teachers, hut it is doubtful whether it will go far, unless it has the encouragement of a thoroughly sympathetic Minister—and that is not at all impossible while the Trade Hall rules the Government, as it does jn New ,South Wales to-day. One of the Ministers went a long way towards telling the truth the other day when he said that it was only the Constitution that prevented Mr Lang (the Premier) from socialising the State. He had found some loop-hores _two or three—but the Governor “was Tyntoking Him closely,” and at his first slip “would put him ftut of office.” Anyway, bore is the pamphlet! -• “Children.—This la to tell you why you should not fight the people of ftther. countries when you grow up. What is war? War is the rich men in various countries quarrelling over who will have all the money and land, and 'when they quarrel. they, declare a. war on each, other; but they do not do the fighting themselves. Not they. They enlist your brothers, and fathers and uncles to be soldiers, promising them all sorts of things if they will only fight- bravely for them. When the rich men have reached an agreement between themselves they declare the war off, while all the poor solj diefs' get all the wounds and get killed and get mean pensions, while the rich men get all the profits of war, made by selling cannons and guns and aeroplanes, and robbing the people of the countries they.,have conquered. '(Children, when you grow up, do not' fight' the people of other lands, but should the rich men (capitalists) make you ’take up riffes to serve in wars, take .-. them,. ’learn to use them well, and then turn them against the rich njen, so as ,to overcome them, so that I you may set' up a workers’ government in your own country, and jn all countries. Then, and then only, men will bf able to dwell in peace with each other, no' matter what their col|fe^ ra SU»P iere «SAllJ I men able to make wars in which poor men will fight and suffer. Children, when your teachers get, you together and glorify war to you, laugh at them, 'and-tell them that on the anniversary of the Great War that you will never fight the workers of Russia or Germany of - China, or any other country, and that when you grow up you will only ■fight in the , workers’ war against the capitalistic class, to give all power to the workers to end war. “The result of the workers’ war can be seen in Russia, the land of the 1 Soviets, where all men and women [labour for .the good of everybody, I where children are not permitted to be led or bullied by their teachers, and where, boys and girls govern in their own schools. Here in Australia the workers suffer' great poverty—your mother and father and yourselves are often hungry, and your father and your brothers cannot get work. So don’t you think you ought to join the Young Communists’ League to work and fight for the day when you and . all of us will commence to make this I land a real children’s paradise. Working children of all lands unite. Join the Young Communists’ League.” And while the militant teachers plan t go ahead with their militant programme, the. Minister for Education says there is no danger of the introduction of Communistic teachings in the schools of New South Wales. He believes in free thought; any way, and would not be a party to tlie silencing of any man, who desired to express his opinions on things in general. On Sunday last he opened a new school hall, and he said there should be a censorship of the “capitalistic” Press I