SEAMEN AND WAR

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 79, 13 January 1940, Page 8

SEAMEN AND WAR

CRITICISM IS RESENTED. ALLEGED COMMUNISTIC JOURNAL (Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, January 12. Strong resentment of criticism in the periodical "To-morrow” was expressed at a stop-work meeting of the Federated Seamen’s Union of New Zealand held at the Trades Hall on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by more than 300 members and was presided over by Mr F. P. Walsh (general president).

The resolution carried reduced to two main points the criticism of the seamen’s recent resolution, these being that the seamen, in passing the resolution, had made themselves tools and. dupes of shipowners and large vested interests, and that the resolution did not represent the views of seamen, but only those of some official who had tricked them into endorsing his statement, which was opposed to the interest of the working class. The resolution now carried by the seamen, says that if the seamen, in condemning the Hitler-Stalin pact and their combined aggression, were dupes of vested interests, then so were the Federation of Labour, the New Zealand Labour Party, the British Industrial and Political Labour Movement, the International Federation of Trade Unions, the International Socialist Movement, the Swedish workers who recently subscribed £IOO,OOO in support of the Finnish workers, and the organised workers of every country in the' world except those under brutal dictatorships such as in Germany and Russia, where they were hot permitted to , express their views. "Familiar Style.” The resolution says that after examination of some of the recent issues of "To-morrow, ’ ? "we recognise the familiar style of the Moscow Communist, with whoso underhand and disruptive tactics in New Zealand our union is so painfully familiar. "Tomorrow,’ it seems, is always a week or two behind its open Moscow comrades in their twists and turns.” The resolution says that in a year or two preceding the outbreak of war "To-morrow” joined the "New Zealand Communist” in urging the British Government to intervene in Spain and Czechoslovakia and wherever Moscow deemed that the British Empire should be involved in war. When Stalin, by joining up with Hitler, launched the present war, ‘Tomorrow,’ like the ‘Communist’ could not turn round quite quickly enough and at first expressed itself in support of the war and still opposed to Hitler.' "Now that the ‘Communist’ lias come out openly against the democracies and for Comrades Stalin and Hitler, ‘To-morrow’ has not yet gone so far and confines itself to criticising everything the Labour Government is doing and to the publication of articles by open or concealed enemies of the Labour movement whose object is to cause dissension within the movement, either for their own glorification or to assist policies of Moscow or both. Further ‘To-morrow’ has given encouragement to cranks and money wizards who advocate monetary inflation as the solution of our financial problems and a cure for all ills. Objection to Methods. "As a section of trade union movement that has been in the forefront of the fight to obtain the standard of living now enjoyed, we strongly object to concealed methods of taking our real wages away from us by reducing the purchasing power of money, but if ‘intellectuals’ and others supporting ‘To-morrow’ find it convenient to do so we may soon expect them to go the full length of the Moscow road.” The resolution concludes by extending an invitation to the editor of "To-morrow” to appear before a stopwork meeting of seamen and explain why it had become necessary in the ’interest of "peace and democracy” for Comrades Hitler and Stalin to bomb defenceless towns and hospitals and destroy innocent women and children in Poland and Finland.