RULED OUT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 8 March 1929, Page 6

RULED OUT.

A.L.P. AND COMMUNISTS. CONFERENCE DECISION. SYDNEY, Feb. 9. That “hardy annual,” the question of admission of Communists, caused some lively passages at the opening oi the A.L.P. Metropolitan Provincial Conference at the Trades Hall this morning. The president, Mr. J. J. Graves, was in the chair, and 163 delegates attended. For various reasons some of the appointed delegates failed to pass the credentials committee.

The rejection of Mr. T. Wright, general secretary of the Communist Party of Australia, and an executive member of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union, caused a stormy discussion. The report of the credentials committee was against him. Mr. Wright was the chosen delegate of his union, but declined to sign the A.L.P. pledge. In a statement to the delegates, signed by the president, Mr. D. J. Kennedy, and tho secretary, Mr. J. D. Marriott, the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union described restrictions surrounding the selection of union delegates to Laoour Party Conferences as "an unwarranted iterference with the right of trade unions to choose their representation upon any -body to which they are affiliated.

“Not only are Communists denied admittance as trade union representatives, but it is insisted that delegates must belong to the electoral branch in their locality,” added the statement. “These restrictions coniine the selection of delegates to a narrow circle in each trade union organisation, and are incompatible with the principles of democracy within the trade unions.” The statement called on the conference to admit Air, Wright, and for the removal of all restrictions.

Amid a stream of interjections and the frequent ringing of the bell, the president ruled that a member of the Communist Party could not sit in that conference until the rules were altered. Some delegates favoured unrestricted admission, • but the feeling of the movement was that men who would not sign the pledge of the movement had no right to be in the conference, .and the report of the credentials committee was adopted. An official of the Timber Workers’ Union, whose three years’ suspension by the Easter Conference had not expired, was declared ineligible to at-, tend, and voluntarily withdrew. 1 The conference carried a resolution pledging financial and general support to the timber workers, whom the mover, Air. E. Koels, president of the Enginedrivers and Firemen’s Federation, described as the “shock troops of the movement against the employers’ offensive.” The resolution also called on tlie Parliamentary members to get into the fight quickly, . to “stand foursquare and not back down.” “Defy Lukin’s award, irrespective of the penalties; let tlie movement say. ‘To h— with your laws’,” advised the senior president of the A.L.P., Air. M. P. Pyon. “The working class is on the retreat; we have to make a stand,” lie added