The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, August 18, 1949. REDS PYRRHIC VICTORY IN AUSTRALIA

Grey River Argus, 18 August 1949, Page 4

The Grey River Argus THURSDAY, August 18, 1949. REDS PYRRHIC VICTORY IN AUSTRALIA

Amid growing' awareness of the risks incidental to Communistic agitation in this country as well as Australia, the public also has reason to beware of the existence of what only could be called the “Little Hitlers” who take opportunities of urging “ironheel” methods against workers. Thus there is the allegation that the recent strike, in Australia has simply been a victory for Communists, and not only this, but, further, that the Federal and New South Wales Governments became on that occasion the servants of an alien and revolutionary cause through delay in obtaining coal to keep up industry and economic life. At the same time the New Zealand Government is similarly libelled, with an insinuation that political support of a small section of alien forces is sought, rather than the defence of democracy through contemptible weakness, instead of resolute rule. What is doubtless meant, but in cowardly fashion merely hinted, is that a strike should be treated as a crime, and the law applied to workers as if they were criminals. This is a fair hint of what might be expected if the Party whose sentiments are thus revealed had the opportunity in this country to ride roughshod over the masses. It is possibly the reason also why that Party would like to see the last of the Upper House, which it would not expect to sanction' the policy of the servile State. A simple test in the Australian case is between the duration of general strikes under previous Governments, especially non-Labour ones, and that of the strike just concluded. In previous instances they were more prolonged and led to greater ill-feeling, if not for many greater hardship, although nowadays admittedly such an upheaval hurts a greater number for more than one reason. For instance the people now are more congregated in cities, and industries and services more complex and more ramified, so that a key stoppage affects the whole scheme of things. Yet Australia’s latest general strike in an industry has been more speedily and efficiently liquidated than any of the sort previously in the country’s history. No doubt, it is really the success of the policy followed which prompts extreme antiLabour bigots to suggest that the Communists instead gained their ends. If those ends had been gained, to prove it'would at least require that they should be stated. Presuming them to have been the creation of disruption, it must then be asked how such a design should have been prevented. This raises the basic issue. By this critic of Labour the issue is said to be the 'worker who is prepared to snatch a material benefit no matter if it is gained at the price of helping an alien and revolutionary cause. There is, however, a prior question- Why should a worker snatch at a material benefit? Why should a capitalist? Why proclaim that, if workers seek a material benefit to the utmost of their ability, they, be treated as criminals? It is any odds that the conditions and rates of the Australian miners will be bettered. .They deserve to be. It was simply the resort to strike action, rather than conciliation, which lined up the nation behind the exceptional actions taken to end the strike. It would be the height of imprudence to gaol workers in thousands because their services were not available for industrial capitalists on the

latters* terms. Yet we have in New Zealand enough little Hitlers to form a regiment who would dragoon the workers on masse. Their brand of the gloved hand in administration is only the mailed fist. As a matter of fact the history of the Labour Movement in Australia is not at all one of internationalistie psychological revolutionism. The A.W.U. is far more characteristic than any of the four other Federations with Communistic leaders, and the Governments are well aware that at heart, the Labour Movement is as sound as a bell. Thus Dr Evatt, repealing yesterday the strike legislation, noted how it had, the solid backing of the vast bulk of the Labour Movement as well as the rest of the community. If it be complained that the Communists use psychological weapons, the complainants have no sort of warranty for their suggestion that you can fight such weapons with handcuffs! The rotten features of capitalistic industrialism feed the psychology on which the Communists operate so cleverly, and the remedy is rather to remove the causes of such a state of mind by mending injustices, than to hit the worker on the head v.’ith a club and ask the doctor to effect repairs. What beats ail is to read citations of democracy by people whose goal is tyranny. Those who dare not utter a word of defence for capitalism in theory, but who revere its exponents in practice, are much more than agitators the people creating the psychological climate for revolutionary adsvoacy. Anyway, they are now reduced to the absurdity of calling the strike settlement in Australia a win for the promoters. This construction, or falsehood, is precisely the way of creating conditions in which seeds of extremism may thrive. It is a gospel of despair!