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Hokitika Guardian, 23 March 1931, Page 4

The very complied ted political and economic situation which has developed lately in Australia, and more especially in New South Wales, is beginning to display some highly dangerous possibilities. |n the first plane the Labour extremists fire insisting that to gain their ends they must use force, because their “capitalist” opponents will nevfer surrender their ill-gotten gains without a struggle, This was the excuse put forward by the Bolsheviks for extirpating the middle-class 1 ‘counterrevolutionaries.” But as a matter of fact the idea, says the Auckland Star, is far older than either Leiiip or A 1 prx. In Sydney, men ljke Donald Grant, the notorious “soap box” orator, are taking up this pretext for bloodshed with enthusiasm, and they have improved upon it by warning their followers that the Labour lenders are exposed to personal danger from “capitalist” vc-ng 'mice, It is alleged that Air Lang needs protection from the “Fascist grouos” which arc said to have been formed in New South Wales, ami .Mr Grant's advice to his audiences to “get guns” will not full on deal ears. It is easy to discount this inflammatory nonsense ns merely the stock-in-trade of a rhetorical demagogue. But unfortunately there is danger arising from another quarter as well. Tn West, Australia is has been suggested that the menace which now threatens the peace and safety of the Commonwealth can

only he grappled with successfully by display of force, and it has been suggested that a body of returned soldiers should seize Canberra and install a military dictator to retrain the enemies of law and order. Then- is nothing more to he said lor this "‘fine frenzy”

than for the irresponsible follies <il Mr Donald ('riant. But the evidence from both sides shows: that there is a very large amount of inflammable material piling up in Australia iust now. and a terrible responsibility will rest with either the Labour extremists or the reactionaries who start the conflagration.