AT LOGGERHEADS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 148, 24 June 1932, Page 3

AT LOGGERHEADS.

RELIEF WORKERS' GROUPS

POSITION IN WELLINGTON.

INFLUENCE OF COMMUNISTS.

Two relief workers' organisations are. now established in Wellington, each with separate views, aims, and headquarters. One, the Relief Workers' Section of the Labour Movement, has its office in the Trades Hall. The other, the United Front of Unemployed and Relief Workers, meets in a room in Upper Willis Street.

Considerable feeling has been roused by published statements made by both sides (*tys the "Dominion"), with the result that the organisations virtually are at loggerheads. The United Front leaders contend that the "R.W.S." is in the hands of political Labour, while the latter, for their part, regard the United Front group as influenced by the Communist movement, if not actively associated with it.

The United Front gioup, which, numerically, is probably the stronger, has For its organiser a Communist,-Mr. T. Kelly, who tame into prominence during the May strike and subsequent disturbances. It was he who was attempting to address a crowd in Upper Cuba Street when stone throwing precipitated a police charge. Prominent in the R.W.S. organisation are Messrs. G. A. Milne (president), S. Vella (secretary), and S. Campbell (organiser). Formerly the R.W.S. was an offshoot of the General Labourers' Union. Now it is a self-contained unit allied to the Labour movement as a whole.

Discussing the position, Mr. P. -M. Butler, who acted as secretary of the R.W.S. under its former constitution, said that this section of the General Labourers' Union was organised solely to assist relief workers, irrespective of their political opinions, and "not to light the Communists."

"Incidentally," he eaid, "the Communists through the united workers movement, attempted to use the relief workers for propaganda purposes rather than to better their conditions, and that is where the difference occurred. We wanted to ease the distress while they wanted to make propaganda out of it. We did not tare whether a man was a Communist or a. Calathumpian, so long as he played the game and helped to better the conditions of the relief workers."