Terror Rule In Czechoslovakia New Measures

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 October 1948, Page 6

Terror Rule In Czechoslovakia New Measures

LONDON, October 7. The diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says that evidence is increasing from unimpeachable sources of growing Communist terrorism in Czechoslovakia. He adds that the sinister nature of the new bill for “ the protection of the Republic” is now apparent. Information received, coupled with statements by the Czech Minister ot Justice (Dr Cepicka) shows clearly that the ideas which are to form the basis of the new legal order m Czechoslovakia are totalitarian. The visions of the bill are so elastic that it will be possible to use it to convict on a treason charge who participates in any form of antiState activities.” Forced Labour

“The introduction of labour camps in Czechoslovakia is thought in Vienna to mark the beginning of a new Communist campaign against absenteeism and go-slow tactics m industry ” *ays the Vienna correspondent of' the “Daily Telegraph.” “Czech workers’ tactics threaten to trustrate all Moscow’s plan's for the sovietisation of the Czech economy. “Czech workers are in fact applying against the Communists the same technique of passive sabotage which they perfected against Hitler., they have already disrupted the Communists’ two year plan, which aimed at an increased output of 140 per cent, in heavy industry and 50 per cent, m consumer goods production by the end of 1948. The Communist newspaper Rude Bravo has already admitted that the plan will fail because of sabotage by ‘capitalist elements. “Absenteeism in nationalised industries is reliably estimated to average half an hour a man a day. This means a loss of 750,000,000 working hours annually. Workers in many cases absent themselves to work in their own gardens and supplement their steadily diminishing rations. Communist Youth “The Communist youth movement newspaper Mlada Fronts has adso admitted that absenteeism in the Moravska Ostrava mines, the largest in the country, is causing an output loss equivalent of £120,000 a day. The management complained that after the miners drew their pay 25 per cent, disappeared for the rest of the W “Reuter’s Prague correspondent quotes a high Government . official, giving reasons for submitting the bill for the protection of the Republic as raying that the West is sending spies, agents, and propagandists to help domestic reaction. “We must still reckon with the possibility of resistance by those who believe that by the new regime they lost their right to existence,” the official said.