SOVIET AND AUSTRALIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 564, 17 January 1929, Page 9

SOVIET AND AUSTRALIA

UNIONISTS INVITED TOUR OF ALL RUSSIA Reed. 9.45 a.m. SYDNEY, To-day. Soviet blandishments to capture the support of the Australian workers continue to attract attention. The latest is an invitation for an official delegation from the Australian Trade Unions to visit Moscow as guests of the Soviet workers. The visitors will tour Russia, trains, trams, cars, and theatres being gratis to them. The delegation leaves about the middle of March, to enjoy the best weather in Europe. It will also visit Germany and England. The personnel is reported to number 36, but the official Labour statement is 16, whose travelling expenses are to be defrayed by the ti'ade unions through the various State Labour Councils. Mr. J. Ryan, director of the Research Department of the Labour Council, who is returning from the All-India Trade Union Congress, where he represented the Russian, Chinese and Japanese workers as well as the Australian unions, is the subject of considerable Labour criticism, owing to the reported payment of his expenses by the Pan-Pacific Secretariat. Dissenting unionists want to know something about Mr. Ryan’s secret mission, also how his representation of the Russian and Eastern unions squares with the Australians’ avowed White Australia policy, which is endangered by entanglement with foreign nationalities affiliated with the secretariat.