THE RED PARTY’S TACTICS.

Shannon News, 26 September 1922, Page 3

THE RED PARTY’S TACTICS.

REPLY TO MB .1. W. THOMPSON

(To The Editor.) Sir,-—in reading the letter of your correspondent, J. W. Thompson, we are sorry to find that he is guilty ol axa-tlv the same offence that we charged Mr McCombs with—he states >n'y gait of the it nth. We did not accuse Mr McCombs, M.P., with “omittihg portions of the land plank” of his party, but we accused him of omitting all the parts of his party’s platform and policy which distinguishes it as a Red Revolutionary organisation with a definite leaning towards Bolshevism. In plain terms, our charge was that be sought to deceive the electors by presenting his party and its objects in other than their true character. What Mr Thompson conveniently ignores is that we not only laid charges, hut presented proof which no one has challenged. Tf your correspondent will read our letter again he will see that Mr McCombs said his parly stood for “making it compulsory to sell through the State,” and we said tint was a false representation. Now Mr Thompson comes in nnd shows we were correct by publishing the lull text wherein it reads “that privately-owned land shall not be sold or transferred except to the State.” Your correspondent need not have troubled to quote the whole land plank, as we bad the party’s constitution and platform before us when we wrote. Seeing 1 hatlie wishes to discuss this plank, we would like him to answer these two questions in order to clear the ground:

J. Is nol danse 3, si;b : c!auses a ami b, under which the .'State would lix the price, and die owner he prohibited from selling or tramderring to any hut the State, a definite policy of confiscating the landowner's right oi' disposal 01 his property ? Will he quote any speecli oi Ballanee or they wherein they ever advocated any sudi principle as this .•tera! pohcy oi confiscation? To put the nutter on a personal ground, let us ask Mr Thompson if

be owned a plot of land and iound it did not pay hint lo hold it iuither, would he hike to he in the position that he could not transfer it even to a relation or sell it in a free market, hut could only sell to the State, which would fix its own price? In our opinion, that policy is .perfectly unjust; it is anti-labour as well as anti-Liberal, and a party holding such principle has no right to the name “Labour Party.” As a final word, let us say plainly to Mr Thompson that our conviction respecting this party is that it is an opportunist combination possessing revolutionary aims and entirely lacking in political honesty.—We are, etc.. N.Z. WELFARE LEAGUE.