COMMUNIST AND LABOUR PARTIES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 53, 11 September 1928, Page 8

COMMUNIST AND LABOUR PARTIES

F. B. Freeman, on behalf of the Wellington Group of the Communist Party, writes at length in reply to Mr. Semple's statements published in Saturday's "Post." The relevant parts of the letter are contained in the following statement:— "Mr. Robert Semple, in the course of his reply to the comments of the Prime Minister on the dispute at the Cascade mine, in your iesuo .of the Bth instant, introduces the Communist Party and its policy. We submit that he grossly misrepresents both the party and its policy and its connection with the Cascade dispute/ states the correspondent. "Mr. Semple asserts that 'the Government's desire for industrial strife was assisted by an irresponsible group of individuals, styling themselves Communists, who arc anxious to promte and cream ukiuh trial strife.' We emphatically repudiate this clumsy falsehood. Those responsible for the iuvitiug of representatives from the Alliance of Labour and the Labour Party included several members of the Communist Party. It is asserted that 'we are disappointed because the dispute was settled satisfactorily.' If the evidence of this exists anywhere except in the vivid imagination of Mr. Semplo, we ask that he produce it. "It is our contention that disputes such as that which arose at Cascade mine are an inevitable product of the capitalist system in which the means of production are owned and controlled by a minority for the extraction of profits by appropriating the products of unpaid wage labour. That is where the responsibility lies. It is the responsibility of a working class party to abolish this exploitation. We maintain that it is the duty of a working class party to fully support the workers in «urh ill* putes. Failure to do so and frantic eftorts to secure a settlement regardless of the terms lest its prejudice votes at election time, is, we submit, denial of such a party's claim to regard the interests of the working class as supreme. "The Communist Party is opposed to the co-operative system as practised at Lake Coleridge, Orongorongo. and attempted at Cascade. This system we regard as a serious menace to the unity of the work ers and the right of collective bargaining. Its immediate benefits to those concerned lead to ultimate loss for the workers as a whole. Its pernicious results have aroused opposition from the workers all over the world. If we offend Mr. Semple in oppos ing this system we at least offend in good company. "Mr. Semple states that 'the Commun ists do not represent the miners.' If they have not the support of the majority oi the miners what is the explanation of the fact that the chief executive officers of the United Mine Workers of New Zealand are members of the Communist Party? Will he dare to assert that they are not elected to those positions by a miun-itv of the rank and file? And will ho further explain the non-affiliation ol lik Miners' Unions because of the Anti-Corn munist pledge in the Labour Party? Ho alleges that 'the Communist Party is created for no other purpose than to injure the Labour party at the poll.' There is abundant evidence available to disprove this charge. Tho following extract from the August issue of the 'Workers' Vanguard,' official organ of the C.P.N.Z., should bo enough: 'in response to an invitation from the Buller L.R.C., the Blackball Miners' Union has appointed a committee of five to assist in securing the Ilturn of the Labour candidate, Mr. H. E. Holland. Three oE {he five are members of the Communist Party.' Wo would also remind Mr. Semple that there was a time when he and many of his colleagues waged a bitter struggle with a Labour Party in New Zealand and was met with the same shower of abuse and villification that ho is now aiming at the Communist Party."