POLITICAL UNDERTAKINGS

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 71, 25 March 1922, Page 9

POLITICAL UNDERTAKINGS

LIBERALS SND THE REDS

The Welfare League writes: —

"Rumours are current in several quarters that there is likely to be an understanding effected between Mr. Wilford's party and Mr. Holland's for the coming General Election. The secretary of the Holland party; Mr. Moses Ayrton, speaking at Invercargill, said that feelers hud been put out in the direction of an understanding between these parties. He did not say whether the feelers were from his party's side or the other. Of course, rumour is reputedly 'a lying jade,' and Mr. Moses Ayrton may have dreamt a dream. After the insulting references that have from time to time been levelled at Mr. Wilford's party by the Hollandses, it is inconceivable how there could be any understanding unless in the way of solid distrust on the Liberal side.

"That the Reds and Labour are one and the same is a comfortable illusion of the adherents of Mr. Holland, but all the same it. is far from being a. fact. Much of the support given to this Red political party is from people who are neither Trade Unionists nor Labourites, but are designing persons -with the ulterior .motive in their heads of wishing to overturn the British Empire and create some new s.tate of affairs of their own imagining. Of coarse, with' an election looming ahead, the Red party spokesmen are generally. on their good behaviour: 'Talk moderate' is the card they are playing at the present time. They are saying very little these ' days of their objective: 'the socialisation of the means 6f. production, distribution, and exchange.' Any suggestions of strikes, goslow, or industrial stoppages of any kind are being frowned upon asj bad tactics. Their policy now is to pose a 8 advanced Liberals. Meantime, the 'men are secretly encouraging the formation of an industrial fighting force of the very largest numbers, which shall be ready when the signal for rev6lt is given. The people of New Zealand must be blind indeed if they fail to recognise that the Reds' objective of socialistic revolution is ever lost sight of by them. The art of. deception was never carried to greater length that it is being practised today by the believers in socialist revolutionism. That is the art being used by the Reds in New Zealand. Still the ambition to demand and rule is hard to keep out of sight by a man with the instinct for i dictatorship, even if he, would name it 'the dictatorship of the proletariat.' Addressing his constituents in the Town Hall of'Westport very recently, Mr. H. E. Holland, M.P., said 'the Liberals could never take office without Labour's consent,' and in the event of Labour holding the-balance of power in a three-party Parliament, they ■ could only retain office while they obeyed the Labour Party. Labour would vote Mr. Massey out at the first opportunity; but if Mr. Wilford came in, Labour would also vote him out on the first occasion that he refused Labour's demands.' There stands the Red dictator. No question of give and take about that party. The term 'Labour,' we must remember, is not here,meant the working population of this Dominion, but simply the people who endorse Mr. Holland's socialist creed and ambitions. What we aro told is that if the Red Party only constitutes one-third of Parliament, it will insist-on-;-, getting'all it demands.;' The people of New Zealand should take note of this.threat, and Labour (real labour) should vote outa party that hypocritically, says it wants pronortional-represen-tation'when its real purpose is the antiLabour one of dictatorship! .;'-," "Wedo not believe that Mr. Wilford's party wi]l: in any way ally itself, with the Reds. There is .nothing in common between the principles of Liberalism or Reform, which recognise the unity^ of the State and the'interdependence of all classes within the State, and a party that aims at creating the domination of one class over all others. Should either the Reform Party or the Liberal be so unmindful of the national interest as to have any understanding with a party that'is out for revolution, the time will have come for either so transgressing to be wiped out of existence. To fiphfc the forces of revolutionary disruption is more than a duty to ourselves, it is our obligation 'to the Empire, which is being attacked on all sides, and the loss will be that of humanity if we fail."