REDS TO DEFY BAN ON SPEAKER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22657, 7 June 1948, Page 6

REDS TO DEFY BAN ON SPEAKER

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 5. A Government decision prohibiting Mr. C. Jones, Queensland State president of the Communist Party, fulfilling a union invitation to give a speech inside the Hutt railway workshops was communicated yesterday afternoon to the Wellington district committee of the Communist party.

An announcement has been made by the party that it is determined, despite the ban to see that Mr. Jones described the recent Queensland railway strike to the Hutt railway workers and. accord ingly. Mr. Jones will address a meet ing outside the workshop gates at noon on Tuesday.

Originally, the party wrote to Mr. K. Jonassen, secretary of the Woburn branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Workers, saying that Mr. Jones would like an opportunity to address the union. The union telephonea the party and said that it had been decided to allow Mr. Jones to speak at lunchtime on Tuesday, and suggested an application to the Railways De partment.

Yesterday the party received a tele phone message from the Railways Department saying that Mr. Jones could not speak inside the workshops. In a statement the party accuses the Government of political bias and says it is nreoared to go “to extreme lengths to prevent information about the strike and subsequent wage increases becom ing known to New Zealand railwaymen and unionists generally.