THE "RED" RULES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 130, 6 June 1927, Page 17

THE "RED" RULES

IN AUSTRALIA

SOME LABOUK HISTOEY

A PERSISTENT OBJECTIVE

In a recent issue of the "Sydney Morning Herald", a roview is published covering the doings of the New South "Wales branch of ' the Australian' Labour Party since 1919, when a conference was held presided over by Mr. Willis, one of the leaders of the quarrel which is at present shaking the party to its foundations. It tells some of the •inner history of ■ happenings in Australia which are only partly understood in New^ Zealand, and give some indication of how the trouble has really developed from small beginnings. The 1919 . conference of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labour Party was. held when, in the month of June, the influenza epidemic was raging, says the "Sydney Morning Herald." Many delegates were unable to attend, and among the absentees were Mr. W. H. Lambert, the president, and the" vice-presidents. Mr. A. C. Willis was voted to the! chair, and presided at the .first two days' sittings. At the close of the second day the result of the ballot for officers and committee was announced. Mr. Willis was., a candidate for one of the vice-presidential seats, and was not elected. At the third day's sitting Mr. it. D. Bramston, one of the newly-elect-ed vice-presidents, went into the chair, and refused to heed protests that Mr. Willis should be allowed to continue as chairman. The conference had been a stormy one, and was characteristically noisy at this juncture. Suddenly someone was heard to say, "Militants out!" "Then, in a body," the "Herald" report of the proceedings runs, "the militant section left the hall, the greatest pandemonium existing at the moment/ The conference had, for this sitting, and doubtless for the success of the manoeuvre regarding the chairmanship, been moved from the Trades Hall to the Protestant Hall. Back to y the Trades Hall the militants marched, and there they held a meeting, at the close of which it was announced that the following motion, moved by Mr. A. 0. Willis, had been carried:—"This meeting recommends the unions and leagues to consider the advisability of forming a new party prepared to work and fight foi_ the establishment of a state of social democracy, and that a conference be called of unions and leagues to consider this question, on a date to be fixed." . •'..■- , IHE OJB.TT. PREAMBLE; For the next two years or so the activities of. Mr. Willis were outside | the palo of the A.L.P., but they were Iso continuously directed against it that the A.L.P. was forced into a conciliatory attitude,, and in June, 1921, he was one of the leading, if not the leading, spirit ■in the All-Australian i Trade . Union/ Congress : held at Mel- [ bourne under AX.P: auspices. That congress did at least two notable things. Jt adopted the 0.8.TJ. preamble —which is as "red" as Moscow itself —as a statement of the political beliefs and aspirations of the unions there _represented; and it appointed a council' of action to function as a sort of arrow head for the militant propaganda shaft the preamble. The preample contains these clauses, among others: "We hold that there is a class struggW iff Bdeiety, and'that the struggle is cawed by the capitalist class owning'the means of production, to | which the working-class must have access in order to live. . . . Between the two classes the struggle must continue until capitalism is abolished. Capitalism can only_ be abolished by the workers uniting in one class-conscious economic organisation to take and hold the moans of production, distribution, and exchange by revolutionary, industrial, and political action. Revolutionary action means action to securo a complete change, namely,.the abolition of capitalistic ownership of the means of production—-whether privately or through the State—and the establishment in its place of social ownership by the whole community. Long cxporience has proved the hopeless futility of existing political and industrial methods, which aim at mending and rendering; tolerable, and thereby perpetuating, capitalism instead of ending In the following October Mr. Willis was in Brisbane while the Federal conference of the A.L.P. was being held. The shadow of theMelbourno congress was over the gathering, and tho conference throw nationalisation overboard and adopted the notorious socialisation plank instead. It also passed this resolution: "That this conference affirms the desirability of making an endeavour to unite politically all the said elements in' the common fight, and that all men who have been officially disconnected with the A.L.P., but who have continued. fighting for workingclass interests, be included if they desire in the A.L.P., without loss of continuity of membership, and that we recommend tho State conferences of the A.L.P. to give effect to the foregoing." ■ j TOE SCENE WAS CHANGED. i This recommendation, as well as tho } new objective, was repudiated by the 1022 A.L.P. Conference in New South Wales, bnt at the 1923 Conference Mr. Willis. again appeared as a delegate, and the. scone was changed. Rumours of the ballot box and other scandals were in the air, and Mr.' Willis was able to achieve the presidency of the executive. With tho now president in the chair, Mr. Garden, another delegate who was not long returned from [Moscow,.moved.this motion, which had been agreed upon at r. conference of trade unions and tho Federal executive held in Sydney a few months before: I For the purpose of bringing about a united working-class front, this conforence recommenua to tho New South Wales Conference of the, Australian Labour Party, the alteration of the rules and the constitution to allow tho affiliation of other working-class parties, with the right of propaganda and organisation/while, at tho same time, requiring a loyal acceptance of tho decisions of representative' conferences." Mr. Denford, who seconded the motion, expressly pleaded for the admission of the Communists, and Mr. Stuart Kobertson, M.L.A., said that; "the A.L.P. ! had become moribund. It was lifeless, and ones ■»• Domtau^-jt p^>,- sa ß;* into tt they would ejve it Hie." The I voting for'and against the motion was | equal—l 22. Mr. Willis, as chairman, j gave his casting vote, quite illegally: it ! was subsequently asserted,' for the motion, and it was declared to be carried. He subsequently contended that •he acted thus by virture of the Brisbane reaplutionTT-a ijjpolution that had j been, adopted, as we have shown, under the influences of the congress which, at j Melbourne, had adopted the 0.8. U. preamble.

Thus, for the first time officially in the A.L.P., it "would seem, was brought up the matter of altering the rules. The 'conception was "red." It was endorsed at a time when, through the misdeeds of the old gang, the movement was ripe for a clinngo of some sort, and the militants—the "Keds"— wore the only alternative. Only a little while before had been published a report of the speech made by Mr. Garden—the. delegate who moved the motion 'at the Sydney Conference—at jMggOsS_fa 3<*ioh he declared that, al-

Ciough the Cpmmtmist Party in AustraJ^a had a membership of only one thousand, it was able to direct just close on four hundred thousand workers. "The labour Council of Now South Wales," ho further said, "constitutes 120 unions. Yet the Communist Party has full control of the executive. Out of the 12 members of the executive, 11 are members of the Communist Party, and they direct these 120 unions and the policy of each union." THE NEW MOVEMENT. In the previous year—l 92 New South Wales Trades and Labour Council had formally resolved to affiliate with the "Bed" International Trade Union, the headquarters of which are in Moscow. It was in such an atmosphere that the movement' for new rules for the New South Wales A.L.P. was born. That later on this movement fitted in with some country Labour agitation for reformed rules was an accident of circumstances. Meanwhile, Mr. Garden and most of his friends have continued in office for the Trades and Labour Council, and the former, after some vicissitudes, has become' the'"protector" of the Premier, while remaining the close 'friend of Mr. WUlis, now Mr. Lang's 1 collague. In February of .last year unions affiliated with the New South Wales A.LJ?. sent delegates to the Trades Hall to a conference, the stated object of which was to consider the A.L.P. as at present constituted in relation'to organised trade .unions, which eo'ald ,be outvoted by leagues owing to what was. described as inadequate representation." A motion foreshadow- | ing the "Bed" rules adopted at Easter time by the Scale conference of the A.L.P. was carried "on the voices." At the A.L.P. conference which followed, a set of rules, produced under conditions favourable to the wishes of the Trades and Labour Council, was pre-_ sented, but the circumstances were not yet right for their adoption. Mr. Willis and his friends were not ready to face the issue then, and the question was postponed. The conference of last j Easter, from which the stronger antiCommunist organisations were absent, swallowed the rules holus bolus, and then, at the instance of the Premier, made the only amendment permitted discussion, one specifically banning Communists from membership of the A.L.P., which in all circumstances is about as effective as would be a label on a tiger affirming that he is not a tiger.