DELEGATION FOR RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Issue 17, 21 January 1932, Page 19

DELEGATION FOR RUSSIA.

AUSTRALIAN" "REDS' » HOPE. ACUTE SHORTAGE OF FUNDS. Great i efforts arc being made by the Soviet Union delegation committee in Australia, to raise a fund to send delegates to Kus6ia in May, says the Sydney "Sun." Previously, delegates "who have left Australia have travelled like princes, but the source from which their expenses came las always remained a mystery. Only once has the veil been lifted. Mr. J. Ryan,* research officer of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council, when questioned at the A.C.T.U. conference in Melbourne in 1928, said that his expenses were paid by the Pan-Pacific Secretariat, through the All-Russian Council of Trades Unions. It was at that conference that the A.C.T.U. decided to affiliate with the Pan-Pacific Congress. Since then the A.R.U. in Australia las affiliated with the Red International of labour Unions, and is supporting the appeal of the Soviet Union Deleg.vtion Committee for funds to send another delegation from Australia to Russia. Most of the unions at the Trades Hull are so financially embarrassed that the appeal is hardly likely to meet with any response. Union secretaries want to know why funds are not this year coming from the same source as previously. Since the Lyons Government took over, the Communist organisation in has been dispersed, and now Wks in secret groups in the suburbs. Three executives have been appointed, so that, in the event of one group being arrested, a substitute group can carry pn. No minutes are now kept of meetings, and no well-known Communists are now seen at the Communists' Hall ffl'Sussex. Street. The attitude of the new Federal Government, should a delegation apply for passports, is said to bo definitely known at-the Trades Hall. "If any 'workers' want to go to Soviet Russia," said one Wiion official, "they should be allowed •o go'and should be told to stay there."