MR HOLLAND’S ANSWER— National Party Would Declare Communism A “Subversive Activity”

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 May 1949, Page 5

MR HOLLAND’S ANSWER— National Party Would Declare Communism A “Subversive Activity”

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day (PA.).— -An assurance that when the National Party became the Government it would immediately declare Communism to be a subversive activity, and debar Communists from positions in which they could serve their foreign masters, was given in a statement today by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Holland.

“The challenge of the Communist Party for me to prove that they are a subversive activity in the eyes of the law and the statement of the Minister of Labour, Mr McLagan—himself formerly an enthusiastic member of the Communist Party—that ‘it is significant that the Communists are putting up candidates against the Labour Party and not against the National Party,’ are just clumsy efforts to conceal the real position,” said Mr Holland.

“Let us put the position quite clearly,” he continued. “Today under the Labour-Socialist Government, Communism is not a subversive activity in the eyes of the law and, so long as the present Government remains in office, Communism is not Irkely to be declared a subversive activity and will be left free to continue its efforts to overthrow our British form of democratic government, so as to replace it with the Russian form of totalitarian Socialism.” It was significant, said Mr Holland that even on the Prime Minister’s staff there was a Communist. “Mi* McLagan’s remark is in line with that of the Prime Minister when he declared that the Communists and the National Party were natural allies,” Mr Holland continued. “This is all part of a cunning plan to distract attention from the fact that the objectives of the Socialists and the. Communists are the same. They differ only in method/ That they work together and find money for each other cannot be denied.

“Communists are admitted to the membership of the Labour Party. They attend the various Labour conferences and help to determine Labour’s policy. “It is sheer humbug to try to link the Communist Party with the National Party,” concluded Mr Holland. “Not even our most bitter enemy would swallow that.”