MR HOLLAND AND COMMUNISM

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25448, 20 March 1948, Page 8

MR HOLLAND AND COMMUNISM

CRITICISM OF STATEMENT

“TYPICAL, INTOLERANT CONSERVATISM ” (P.A.) INVERCARGILL, March 19. “While agreeing that the existing threat to industrial relationships in New Zealand is serious, I cannot help but feel Mr Holland’s recent statement regarding Communists is typical, intolerant conservatism, ahd savours too much of the days of the Inquisition,” said Mr Warren Freer, M.P. for Mount Albert, in an address at Bluff. “Is Mr Holland proposing to take action against only one section of the Communist movement? What about those in professions and business generally? Anyone who has studied history will agree that anyone martyred to-day is to-morrow’s hero.”

To his mind, said Mr Freer, the most effective • way to reduce industrial troubles was to see that whoever broke an industrial agreement, irrespective of whether it was employer or employee, employers’ association or union, was penalised. Radicals of any political creed could reach prominence in any movement only through the apathy of others, and it was up to all in unions and organisations generally to see that those elected to high, responsible positions would place the peace and prosperity of the nation before all else.