ANGLICANS PERTURBED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 9 June 1945, Page 5

ANGLICANS PERTURBED

COMMUNIST DOCTRINE SPREAD IN NEW SOUTH WALES SCHOOLS ALLEGED 1 Sydney, June 7. High school pupils in New South Wales were absorbing the Communist doctrine and taking home Communist literature from their schools, it was asserted by members of the Anglican Synod, which is meeting in Newcastle. , “My own son had been going to high school only a few months when he began talking Communist bosh,” said one member of the synod, Colonel A. A. White, in proposing that a protest be made to the State education authorities. “The boy was rapidly assimilating Communist ideas from the teachers at school and even began bringing home Communist literature. I am glad to say he has now changed his views on Communism.” The synod’s warning is only one of .the many widespread warnings which ’continue to be sounded against Communist infiltration throughout Australian industry, politics and education. It has been revealed that Communist propoganda has been distributed in comforts parcels to Australian troops in the northern battle areas. Front-line soldiers have reported that an ever-growing amount of Communist literature has been reaching them in this way. COMMUNIST “CELLS” The “Sydney Morning Herald” alleges that Communist cells existed in Australia’s permanent defence forces before the war and that their work recently had been vastly expanded and intensified. Many union officials are warning their organisations against Communist efforts to gain minority control within the unions. The Builders’ and Labourers’ Union this week declared “uncompromising hostility to members of the Australian Communist Party, which is working against the interests of trade unionism and the workers.” To-day the Acting-Attorney-General, Mr Beasley, castigated Mr E. Thornton, the Commijnist secretary of the Federated Ironworkers’ Association, for his “basic non-Australianism” in recently attacking the White Australia policy. “Mr Thornton’s proposed immigration on a quota system without discrimination of race or colour would inevitably create in Australia unassimilable cells of non-Australianism,” said Mr Beasley. “These cells would suit the purposes of the Communist Party, which is attempting to break down the ideals of democratic Australian labour in favour of a system in which Australia’s entire way of life would be dictated from outside Australia."—P.A. Special Australian Correspondent. DENIAL BY MINISTER Sydney, June 8. Allegations by members of the Anglican Synod in Newcastle that Communist doctrines were taught by teachers to pupils of secondary schools in New South Wales have been denied by the State Minister of Education, Mr Heffron. “Charges of a similar kind have been made before and whenever proof has been asked for it has not been forthcoming,” said the Minister, who offered further investigation if the synod would make specific charges. The headmaster of Newcastle Boys’ High School, Mr W. Pillans, commented that after investigation he was satisfied there was no Communist activity within his school.