THE “RED” IN OUR MIDST

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 326, 11 April 1928, Page 8

THE “RED” IN OUR MIDST

CONGRATULATIONS may be extended the New Zealand Labour Party for its good sense in excluding the “Reds.” At the annual conference of the party, a proposal to admit Communists as members was defeated by 106 votes to 9. On the other hand, the Conference of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Labour Party has accepted a resolution admitting that, “while the policy and methods of the Communist and Labour parties are at variance,” the objective of both parties is identical in the socialisation of industry. By adopting this resolution, the State Labour movement has acted in direct defiance of the Federal body, which has rejected the Communist doctrine and prohibited its advocacy by members of the Labour party. The State body will discover itself nurturing a scorpion. Had Australia and New Zealand been nearer Europe, both would, by this time, have been flooded with the Communistic sand which is gritting in the cogs of industry in other countries. As it is, they 'have had sufficient warning of what Communism means by disruptions elsewhere, and the refusal by the New Zealand Labour Party to recognise Communists other than as industrial outcasts is the best thing the party could have done in its own and in the general interest. Japan—near to Soviet Russia—has discovered that Communism means revolution and dictatorship, and she has discovered Communist societies and arrested several hundreds of their numbers. Communism is a canker that grows mightily on the slightest encouragement—a disease of the body politic which is far more easily prevented than cured.