STRONG REPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 10, 12 January 1940, Page 4

STRONG REPLY.

ATTACK ON SEAMEN.

HITLER-STALIN PACT.

DENUNCIATION BY UNION.

COMMUNIST TACTICS SEEN,

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

Strong resentment of criticism in the journal "To-motrow" was expressed at a stopwork meeting of the Federated Seamen's Union of New Zealand, held in the Trades Hall on Tuesday, attended by over 300 members, and presided over by Mr. F. P. Walsh, the general president. The resolution carried reduced to two main points the criticism of the seamen's recent resolution, these being that the seamen, in passing the resolution, had made themselves the tools and dupes of the shipowners and large vested interests, and that the resolution did not represent the views of the seamen, but only those of some official who had. tricked them into endorsing his statement, which was opposed to the interests of the working class.

The resolution now carried says: "If the seamen, in condemning the HitlerStalin pact and their combined aggression, were the dupes of vested interests, then so were the Federation of Labour, the New Zealand Labour party, the British Industrial and Political Labour movement, the International Federation of Trade Unions, the International Socialist movement, the Swedish workers who recently subscribed £100,000 to support the Finnish workers, and the organised workers of every country in the world, except those under brutal dictatorships, such as in Germany and Russia, where they are not permitted to express their views." "Twists and Turns." The resolution add* that after an examination of some recent issues of "Tomorrow," "we i the familiar style of the .Moscow Communist with whose underhand and disruptive tactics in Xew Zealand our union is so painfully familiar. 'To-morrow' it seems is always a week or so behind its open Moscow comrades in their twists and turns."

The resolution states further that in the year or two preceding the outbreak of war "To-morrow" joined the Xew Zealand Communists in urging the British Government, to intervene in Spain and Czechoslovakia, and wherever Moscow deemed that- the British limpire should be involved in war. When Stalin, by joining up with Hitler, launched the pr?sent -war, "To-morrow," like the Communists, could not turn round quite quickly, enough, and at first expressed itself in support of the "war, ajid still opposed to Hitler. "Now that tile Communists have come out openly against the democracies, and for the comrades Stalin and Hitler, 'To-morrow 5 has not yet gone so far, and confines itself to criticising everything the Labour Government is doing, and to the publication of articles by open or concealed enemies of the Labour movement, whose object is to cause dissension within the movement, either for their own glorification, or to assist ,£he policies of Moscow, or both. Further, •'Tomorrow' has given encouragement to th® cranks and money wizards, who advocate monetary inflation as the solution of our financial problems, and the cure for all our ills. Objection to Concealed Methods. "As a section of the trade union movement that has been in the forefront of the light to obtain the standard of living now enjoyed, we strongly object to the concealed methods of taking our real wages away from us by reducing the purchasing power of money, but if the "intellectuals' and others supporting 'To-morrow' find it convenient to do so we may soon expect them to go the full length of the Moscow Road."

The resolution concludes by extending an invitation to the editor of "To-mor" row" to appear before a stop-work meeting of seamen and explain why it should become necessary in the interest of "peace and democracy" for his comrades, Hitler and Stalin, to bomb defenceless towns and hospital*, and destroy innocent women and children in Poland and Finland.

The meeting unanimously endorsed the resolution passed by the National Council of the New Zealand F'ederation of Labour at its meeting on December 20, in which the Federation of Labour pledged itself to support the Labour Government in the work for the economic freedom of the people of NewZealand, and, further, to support the Government in all its efforts to defeat Nazi-ism, dictatorships and all forms of aggression.