"RED FEDS"

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1922, Page 5

"RED FEDS"

CONSPICUOUS PROGRESS .CONSIDEREL ALARMING. AN ISITT DECLAMATION ■ CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Mr L. M. Isitt, M.P., in an address to friends and supporters last night, remarked that many of the most devoted. workers and staunchest supporters on his committee were Reformers. He desired to say that' his pledge, which secured that support, was not •on his part a bargain. The secretary of the Reform League would tell them that he made it plain to. him, while of course, he was very anxious that' Reform should not run a candidate and -so increase the chance of a Red Fed i-getting in. His pledge of 1922 was "Ms pledge of 1919. It was not a n.titer of convenience, but of conviction, =and whether or not Reform determined to run a candidate his pledge would remain unaltered.

Continuing, Mr l3itt said his position was the Tesult of careful consideration. In his opinion not only the "Dominion, but the British Empire was Jace to face with a menace in comparison with which the difference between •two local parties "was insignificant. Tor years he had been tTying to conevince his brother members, b.oth Liberal and Reform, that the extreme Labour Party was making rapid dual pro- 4 ■ gross in the strength of its revolutionary and socialistic conviction, and ' progress numerically. He' had been "thought an alarmist. Very few memibers believed that extreme Labour would add to its strength in the election, but now it had doubled its number and he understood that • its vote ■amounted to over 150,000. The question was, how were they to meet this growing dangfer. In the past both Liberals and Reformers had been to "blame. They yielded, and had been -placative when they ougiht to have •stood firm. They had been idle and •silent where the Red Teds, Sundays •and weekdays, were ceaseless m tlieir , propaganda. If they really loved their Empire and believed in constitutional government it behoved both parties -to meet propaganda with propaganda, , throughout the yeaT, and not merely -at election time, to go in for organised Tesistance. —Press Assn.