ANTI-RED DRIVE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22583, 11 March 1948, Page 5

ANTI-RED DRIVE

ALL SCANDINAVIA SWEDISH INITIATIVE FEAR OF COUP OR WAR (10 a.m.) LONDON, March 10. The Swedish Democratic Party is starting a big propaganda campaign against Communism, reports the Times' correspondent in Stockholm. The Prime Minister, M. Tage Erlander, said the campaign had not been co-ordinated with Denmark and Norway but that co-operation between the Social Democratic Parties of the three Scandinavian countries was so close that it virtually amounted to the same thing. The correspondent adds that anticommunist feeling is growing in Sweden and that all parties are decs manding that Comunists be exposed as •’ dfth columnists and potential quislings. Many warning voices also emphasise a/ the deficiencies of'Sweden’s defences in 1 case of coups or war.

The Austrian Trade Unions’ executive committee threatened to expel all trade unionists who organise or join “action committees” such as the Communists. who, for the last week, have been advocating in the factories. The Minister of the Interior, who declared that action committees were illegal, said that discontent was rising among the workers because meat had not been supplied for many weeks. He added that tne farmers’ and middlemen’s irresponsibility was driving the population to despair. A report from Santiago, Chile, says that the Chilean Cabinet today approved of a decree removing all Communists from Government jobs. The Government is also considering a law banning the Communist Party.