Algie Would Make Reds Obey Law

Northern Advocate, 29 November 1947, Page 6

Algie Would Make Reds Obey Law

GREYMOUTH. Sat. (P.A.).—“I have no patience with Communists —I mean real Communists, not drawing-room Bolshevists.

“Their creed and mine are as poles apart, but I would not deport Communists, if I became the Government so long as they kept to the law o£ the land,” said Mr R. M. Algie, M.P. for Remuera, in an address in the Miners’ Hall at Runanga last evening. He .was replying to a question as to whether he could deport Communists. Mr Algie said that he could not logically deport them. It would not be British or fair, if they observed the laws of the land. “But bear this in mind,” he said, “there are many parts of the Communists’ creed which are contrary to the law, and I would see that the law was carried out to its fullest extent." COMMUNISTS AND LABOUR Mr W. Sullivan, National M.P. for the Bay of Plenty, replied, at Greymouth, to the denial of the national secretary of the Labour Party (Mr A. J. McDonald) that he (Mr McDonald) had spoken in glowing terms of the assistance given by Communists to the Labour Party. Mr Sullivan stated that at the Lab-; our Party conference in 1945. Mr McDonald had stated that the Communists had assisted Labour candidates at the last 1943 election, and had done a good job alongside members of the Labour Party. This statement had been reported in the Labour Party's newspaper, The Standard. “It would be a great pity,” Mr Sullivan said, “if Mr McDonald has been reported incorrectly by his own party's publication.” Amplifying his original statement, Mr Sullivan said the/ most ardent workers for the Labour Party were and, always had been, the Communists. That was the case in Westland, too.