COMMUNIST PARTY
TWO CANDIDATES SPEAK
The "capitalist" system, Coalition Government, and the Labour Party were a few of the subjects upon which an attack was directed at the opening of the Communist Party's election campaign in the Mokoia Hall last evening. The principal speakers were Mr. K. V. Griffin, candidate for Wellington Central, and Mr. W. O'Reilly, candidate for Wellington South. The meeting was particularly quiet and orderly, not more than one or two interjections of a mild, character being made throughout the addresses, which occupied about two hours. There was an attendance of between 120 and 130 people, including a number of women. Mr. A. Galbraith presided. "From the point of view of the Communist Party—the New Zealand section of the Third International —we look upon this as an historic occasion," said Mr. Galbraith, in opening the meeting. It marked an advance by the working-class movement, he said, especially the Communist Party, in at last coming out into the open in an election campaign with distinct candidates. Keferring to the two candidates, he said both were well known—Comrade Griffin had made'a tour of .Russia and had been token "great notice of by the authorities" in New Zealand, and in that way had become'notorious. In the course of his remarks, Mr. Griffin said he and Mr. O'Reilly had to find a deposit of £10 each before Friday in order to bo able to go to the polls, and ho did not believe that at the present timo that they had 10s between them.
At the conclusion of the addresses a number of questions were asked, and the bulk of them were answered bj; Mr.
Griffin. He was asked, inter alia, how he would vote, in the event of his,election to Parliament, on a no-confidence motion. II said he would bo an agitator for tho workers and would use Parliament as a "glorified soap-box," speaking to tho workers all the time. None of the other parties would have his support. A vote of confidence in the two candidate's was carried without a dissentient voice.
COMMUNIST PARTY
Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 120, 17 November 1931, Page 5
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