THE NEW GUARD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 30, 6 February 1933, Page 8

THE NEW GUARD.

CAMPBELL'S BOASTS. "WE MAKE GOVERNMENTS." BRANCH IN NEW ZEALAND. I ~ (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, February 2. The "Labour Daily" is still very plaintive and resentful about the New Guard and its alleged plot to confiscate our liberties, and Colonel Campbell, who has never been conspicuous for tact, has just helped to revive the crusade against "the Australian Fascists" in rather an acute form. The gallant colonel left Sydney on a trip Home a few days ago, and he received a rather demonstrative farewell from his adherents. However, the colonel did not seem to think that his departure provided a favour<Uile opportunity for a speech, and hy was discreetly silent. But when he got to Perth, he evidently decided that the' monfent had conic to let the world have the benefit of the New Guard's policy, and he spoke accordingly. He explained to an inquisitive reporter that his organisation "still means business"; that it has 250,000 members in New South Wales, including 35 battalions of • military men,- and that it I has branches in every other Australian State and in New Zealand as well. As to the teason or the excuse for its existence, the New Guard, says Colonel Campbell, really controls the political destinies of Australian "We make or unmake Governments at the polls. Undoubtedly the New Guard put. in Lyons and Stevens—on certain promises. If they fail to keep those promises, thev will certainly go out. If Lyons says he is going to dump Communists and doesn't do it, he ■vvijl go out on his pink ear next time because we have amajority in our hands." Would Use Force. On top of all this the New Guard leader asserted that, though his organisation is "protective" in purpose- and intention, "it would not-hesitate to use force in the-interests of law" and order."

Naturally this has amazed a great many people who were in the first instance sympathetically disposed towards the, New Guard, at a time when Colonel Campbell and his friends were representing themselves as the only surviving defenders of our constitutional rights'. But it also had the effect of stirring up the "Labour Daily" to revive public recollection of certain sensational disclosures that seriously. damaged the prestige of the New Guard last year. Plot of Last March. When* members of the New Guard appealed against the sentence imposed on them in the Garden assault case, Detective-Sergeant Alford, of the C.1.8., gave evidence that the police had secured plans of a conspiracy organised by the New Guard, in March, 1932, to isolate the city, to cut off power and light, and, under cover of darkness, to seize Parliament House by armed force, overthrow the Lang Government and set up a dictatorship in New South Wales. N6 attempt was made to follow up these allegations, and. though it was freely asserted that the police had leeommended the arrest of seven leaders of the New Guard on charges of seditious conspiracy, nothing was done in this direction cither. These rumours were, never substantiated before a court, but the C.1.8. report in particular left a bad impression on people's minds, and if Colonel Campbell seriously hopes to regain or establish his ascendancy in public affairs here, it., is folly to give his enemies such an opportunity as this.