THE COMMUNIST PARTY

Evening Star, Issue 23527, 16 March 1940, Page 22

THE COMMUNIST PARTY

REBUKES " INCITEMENTS TO DISORDER" Appropos of recent discussion, the following statement has been issued by Messrs E. W. Hunter and I. Jamieson, representing the Dunedin Communist Party The Dunedin branch of the Communist Party of New Zealand takes strong exception to the statements made by leading members of the Dunedin Returned Soldiers' Association reported in your issue of the 13th inst. The branch declares that the general tenor of the remarks as published can be regarded only as a direct incitement to disorder. Do the rank and file of returned men of the R.S.A. desire to incite disorder and attack everyone holding different views to their own? The Communist Party knows that they do not. They know that such views, worthy only .of Hitler himself, merely como from those at present in control of the R.S.A. . The Communist Party, as a political party, takes_ up all tho day to day issues affecting the welfare of the people. Further, the Communist. Party carries on its political work in »a perfectly legitimate manner, and. as such has the same rights and privileges, as any other political party. The threats used by tho leaders of the R.S.A. to break up public meetings and to attempt to stifle opinion, if 4 allowed to continue, will lead inevitably to Fascism and the same form of suppression of thought and free speech which happened in Hitler’s Germany, and against which this country is fighting abroad. The R.S.A. apparently wants to act as a Gestapo, or political censor, as well as a .storm troop for the breaking up of political meetings.