KEY POSITIONS HELD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26634, 3 December 1947, Page 6

KEY POSITIONS HELD

COMMUNISTS IN UNIONS

CLAIM BY WELLINGTON COMMITTEE

P.A. WELLINGTON, Dec. 2. “Mr Fraser is flogging a dead horse when he attempts to disprove the identity of the Communist Party and the Labour Party," declared the Wellington District Committee of the Communist Party in a statement to-day. The statement added that the Communist Party in New Zealand would go forward to its objective of Socialism and durable peace, and the Communist leaders of trade unions were not letting New Zealand down when they fought for those objectives. The statement claimed that New Zealand was not endangered by Communism, but was menaced by the “ subservience’ of the British and New Zealand Labour Governments to American imperialism,” which, the statement alleged, was dragging down people’s living standards. That there was a cleavage of opinion if not of interests, between industrial Labour and political Labour, was the opinion expressed to-day by a prominent union offical. He said that Communists for a good many years had led numbers of trade unions in various parts of the country. Communists were also prominent officials in some district trade councils notably in Auckland, and all these organisations were affiliated with the New land Federation of Labour, which was the true prop of the Government. Thus*, he said, the tactics of the Government, as indicated by the speeches of Mr Fraser and Mr Skinner, were puzzling. The Federation of Labour remains reticent about its transactions at last week’s conference. “There were no communications to make about anything,” the official said.