THE NEW GUARD

Hokitika Guardian, 19 February 1932, Page 5

THE NEW GUARD

.PUBLIC APPREHENSION. SECRET ACTIVITIES PREVALENT

(Australian Press Association.)

SYDNEY, February 18.

There is exceptional activity among tho members of the New Guard. This is causing considerable interest. There are night meetings, mobi.isation, drill rehearsals, and secret manoeuvres along military lines, held in variola suburbs.

These are- provoking a hot protest from the Labour press. There is even talk of kipnapping the Premier, Mr Lang. The unexpected arrival of the police last .night checkmated a big gathering of two thousand New Guardsmen at Fairfield, an outer suburb. Whatever their plain were, they were not disclosed, go the police contented themselves with booking the .numbers of the plate from the large fleet of motor cars in which the men, present travelled to their rendezvous. There is a general feeling in the community that- the New Guardsmen anticipate some form of trouble shortly, and that it may synchronise with the opening of the- Harbour Bridge, in which they are desirous that the Premier, Mr Lang, should not participate. The unrest in the community may be gauged from a speech made at Goulburn by Mr J. Ownes, leader of an unemployed deputation to the Min' ister of Agriculture, seeking, further food relief. Mr Ownes said that unless -something were done- in the next three months, there would be one of the gravest upheavals in the Commonwealth.

The Minister, Mr Tullv, replied that the < Government regarded the- issue of food relief as an insurance against revolution.

LEADER.’9 STRONG TALK

(Received this day at. 9.25 a.nP (SYDNEY, February 18

Addressing a huge meeting of New Guardsmen, at Sydney Town Hall tonight, Colonel Eric Campbell declared an overwhelming tragedy was facing this country, but if the forces of revolution attempted anything 'the New Guard, which was always alert, would be prepared, without so much as the loss of one life, to take over and control the State of New South Wales. The time- was rapidly coming when the police force here would have to choose whether to have the Union Jack or Red Flag flying over the Government buildings. He was quite sure the police had already made their decision.