THE HAND BEHIND

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6844, 23 February 1929, Page 7

THE HAND BEHIND

Moscow and The P.P.’S The Pan-Pacific Trado Union Secretariat has difficulty in finding any placo for its propagandist conference outside of Asia. A meeting of the Secretariat mas held in Shanghai in February of last year. Australian, Filipino, Japanese, Russian, American, British and Chinese delegates mere present. This meeting convoked the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Congress to meet in Sydney in 1929, but the meeting mas forbidden by the Federal Government. It is pointed out the objects of the PanPacific Trade Union Secretariat are revolutionary, that its leaders are avowed enemies of Great Britain and the United States, and that they represent the hand of Moscow in the wide Pacific.

Not an Open Bond. The American Federation of Labour is strongly opposed to tho Secretariat, and in a letter to a friend in Melbourne the president of the federation (Air W. Green) discloses the close link between the Communist party and the Pan-Pa-cific Secretariat. Mr Green writes: ‘'The utmost authentic material to bo obtained regarding the formation of tho Pan-Pacific Union Secretariat is almost exclusively of Communist origin. Tho Red International of Trado Unions with headquarters at Aloscow, is responsible for the creation of the Secretariat, and actively controls its activities. The Secretariat has not adhered to the Red International because it has been thought better tactics to have it remain outside, so that it might attract to itself other trade unions not themselves affiliated to tho Red International. The establishment of this new organ is evidenco of the continuing purpose of tho Bolshevik leaders to interfere in and to attempt to direct the course of affairs in the colonial dependencies of Great Britain.

‘‘The first proposal to summon a gathering of the Labour leaders to the Pacific Ocean countries was made by the Australian Trade Unions. This proposal was reported to the second congress of tho Red International, and it decided to call simultaneously with its next congress a conference of tho revolutionary trade union organisations of the colonies. The fourth congress of the Communist International, in considering the eastern question, referred to the resolution of the second congress of the Red International, and it adopted a thesis which stated that the task of the Communist party, among other things, was to conduct extensive propaganda to teach tho people of the colonial countries to regard Soviet Russia as the bulwark of all the oppressed and exploited masses.

Communist Direction. As a result of the fourth congress of the Communist International and of tho second congress of the Red International, the latter organisation con vened the Pan-Pacific conference of transport workers in Canton in June, 1924. The report of this conference shows that its work was directed by representatives of the Communist International and of the Red International. This conference was important because it was the first attempt to unite the separate movement of the foremost sections of the working class in the countries of the Pacific Ocean.

"A conference was held at Sydney in August, 1926,” continues Mr Green, "at which it was decided the Pan-Pacific Congress in Canton in 1927. This conference actually met in Hankow. Representatives were present from Russia and other trade union centres. Representatives from the Philippines, Mexico, India, Australia, and Canada were invited, but for a variety of reasons were unable to attend. Of the speakers and reporters at this conference the most important have been connected with the international revolutionary movement directed from Moscow. Lozovsky, of Rus sia, holds tho Secretariat is not a new international, but a new weapon for the creation of a United International. According to Heller, also of Russia, the unity of the Pan-Pacific labour movemeut in tho Secretariat was only possible because of the work of the Red International and its sections.”