"REDS" AND NEW GUARD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 291, 9 December 1931, Page 8

"REDS" AND NEW GUARD.

MORE TROUBLE EXPECTED. INSTANCES OF MAN-HANDLING QUESTIONS IN PARLIAMENT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 4. Despite sectional defections, the operations of the New Guard, the Fascist organisation in New South Wales, with a membership of over 100,000, pledged to exterminate Communism and other forms of extremism, still form a remarkable reply to the Lang Government, under which all kinds of violent extremists have flourished. The New 'Guard having fired the imagination of country centres, there have been, wide-spread demonstrations against the Reds, wherever they have appeared, and -particularly when any statement derogatory to the Union Jack or : the King has been made. Anyone professing Communist beliefs is being run out of various country towns. Communist orators had been allowed to talk and spread their views and pamphlets i I unmolested in and around the city until the advent of the New Guard; but in recent weeks Red speakers have been j given a rough' handling. At Ashfield | Park, . in, the centre of the thickly populated western suburbs, last weekend, thousands of citizens, incensed by j a Communist speaker's derisive remarks i about, the flag and the King, rushed bis | playform and overturned it. His small bodyguard of Reds fought back; but was overwhelmed, and -appeared likely to receive a severe handling, but for the advent of the police, who escorted the whole party away. Similar manhandling has been dealt out to Red speakers at other points in the suburbs, and in some cases it has been found that the speakers and their friends carry lengths of iron piping and other weapons. It is generally admitted that members of the New Guard have provoked the attacks on the speakers, who had been .unmolested before thn.t organisation came into being. Much bad blood is being stirred, and there have come vague threats of coun-ter-reprisals from some mysterious

organisation so far unnamed. The police anticipate that serious trouble will develop at any moment, and the activities of both organisations are being watched closely. In the Legislative Assembly this week Mr. Gosling, Chief Secretary, made an attack on certain newspapers for fostering both the Reds and the Xew Guard. Mr. Hefifron acked the Minister whether his attention had been directed to the organised interruption of public meetings by members of the New Guard. If so, would the Minister inform the Hou6e what steps the Government was taking to preserve the right of free speech and freedom of thought. The Minister charged the Press with exaggerating, distorting, and inventing disturbances, and provoking trouble. He quoted from police reports which suggested that several reports were exaggerated. Regarding the organised interruption of public meetings, there was evidence that this charge was unfortunately only too true. - "Fredoom of thought, freedom of discussion, and liberty of the conscience and toleration," said the Minister, "are recognised as bulwarks of British freedom, and we will preserve these for the people."