COMMUNISTS' AIMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 209, 3 September 1932, Page 7

COMMUNISTS' AIMS.

QUESTIONS BY JUDGE. WEXUNGTON APPEAL CASES. VIOLENCE NOT CONDEMNED. Richard Francis Griffin, one of three Communists whose appeals against their convictions and sentenoes of three years' reformative detention were heard in Wellington this week, was closely questioned by Mr. Justice Reed concerning the aims of the Communist party in New Zealand. Griffin denied advocating lawlessness or violence. His Efonor: Surely your papere advocate it, don't they?— Well, up to the present I have not seen any evidence of

it. Statements have been made to that effect. Hie Honor said that he had not read any issues very fully, but he had not found any expression of dissatisfaction with the breaking and smashing in Wellington and at Auckland. Griffin said that he was prepared to admit that they did not condemn acts of violence; but they did not preach it —they attempted to explain it. "Pamphlet Clear Enough." Hie Honor: Surely that pamphlet ("Strike Strategy and Tactics") is clear enough. The whole substance of it points out that it is a chance for the Communist party, when conditions are bad, to work among the workers and stir them up. Griffin said that was true to a certain extent. That did not mean, however, that the party excited people to lawlessness or violence. The position was that when economic conditions were bad, something must be done about it. Griffin was in the middle of replying when his counsel interrupted him, saying that the point was important. "His Honor suggests," said counsel to Griffin, "that the theme of this pamphlet ie that when times are bad, then comes the opportunity for the Communist party. Well, you admit, I think, that hie Honor's way of putting it is, up to a point, fair. What do you mean by your opportunity—opportunity to do what V Witness: Opportunity to turn people's minds toward the change of the system which we consider responsible for their bad conditions. To turn people's minds toward the building of a system where these things won't happen. Hie Honor: By an opportunity do you mean an opportunity for conversion, but not an opportunity for destruction?— Yes, we don't preach destruction. Magistrate's Decision. The charge in respect of which Griffin and Alexander Galbraith appealed was that they printed and published an issue of the "Red Worker," containing allegedly seditious passages. John Joseph Robinson appealed from his sentence on a charge of printing and publishing an allegedly seditious pamphlet. Mr. Page, S.M., held that the papere from end to end eotained an appeal and an incitement to reaot the law by mili- '■ taut mass action, and to bring about; the overthrow of the State and the Con-j stitution by revolutionary violence. J Mr. Justice Reed reserved his decision! on all three appeals. j