FORCES OF REVOLUTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19582, 11 September 1925, Page 7

FORCES OF REVOLUTION

RAMPANT IN AUSTRALIA. MR BRUCE’S DENUNCIATION. MM STAND ADOPTED. Preo* Ao»ociation—By Telegraph-Copyright.. MELBOURNE, September 9. Speaking at Dandonong, the principal centre of his electorate, Mr Bruce said he was there because lie felt that there were some things that it was essential that the Prime Minister should say to the people of Australia at what he believed was a very critical hour in their national history, lie proposed to deal with the vital issues confronting them in an absolutely impartial manner. “Unhappily,” ho said, “there are in our midst those who would undermine our democratic system of government and destroy all the great constitutional principles we hold most dear. They would have us accept the pernicious doctrines of Com Vnnnism, and would foist upon us the same oligarchic form of government which brought min and disaster to Russia. These tilings arc repugnant to our national ideals, and I appeal to by fellow-citizens to assist mo in destroying this viper which has raised its head in our midst.” Mr Bruce then referred to the malignity and hatred shown to the British Empire by Russia, and went on : “Wherever there is strife—national or industrial —the paid agents pf Bolshevism will be found. Unfortunately, in Australia wo have not escaped them. There are leaders of Labour in our midst who not only believe in the hideous doctrines of Bolshevism, but glory in expounding them. Recently Mr Garden, secretary of the Sydney Trades and labour Council, at a conference at the Third International at Moscow, said: ‘Although flic Australian Communist Party is a small party, I believe it has found the keynote so far as the Anglo-Saxon movement is concerned. The Communist Party in Australia has a membership of nearly 1000, and yet it Is able to direct close on 400,000 men, including 237,000 in New South Wales, comprising all the organised workers, and 110,000 workers m Queensland.’ ” Mr Brace went on to say that the Communist Party had full control of the executive of the Labour Council in New South Wales, which was directing the policy of 120 unions. The time had now arrived when the Government had to takc_ action to protect the people of Australia and to protect trade unionism from betrayal by its own leaders. Tiro Prime Minister asked; “Can anyone challenge the right of a country to expel the emissary of an organisation whoso objective is to bring ruin and chaos e'lOu the country the hospitality of which hu is enjoying?” j Mr Brace denied that the Deportation Act would bo used for deporting legitimate trades union leaders, and said. Unfortunately, although tire measure was designed to help the Labour movement, it has been bitterly opposed by it, and the opjwsilion has even boon carried by a Slate Premier to the point of refusing to afford the Commonwealth Government the assistance of the State instrumentalities in carrying out the Commonwealth law. Such an attitude was impossible, and would inevitably lead to a position which could not possibly be tolerated. The Prime Minister said ho trusted that wiser counsels would prevail, and that Mr Lang would'reccde from his present position. Mr Bruce said ho believed that the people were resolved that law and order should bo maintained, and that they looked to him to see that those things were accomplished. Ho would not hesitate to carry out the task entrusted to him, and he would not hesitate at any time to appeal to the people for an endorsement of his actions. “The mare I think of revolts and revolutions the less am I impressed by their permanent economic and social results,” says Mr William Graham, a Labour M.P. from Edinburgh, in the Railway Service Journal. “Carlyle gives a wonderful picture of the French peasantry before the Revolution. They wero not tended; they were only regularly shorn. They had a carnival of processions and the guillotine, and liberty, fraternity, equality or death ; they have had three republics ; but there are few countries which are further away from economic democracy to-day. The people of France do not own: individual Frenchmen and Frenchwomen do, to such an extent that on their limited holdings they have a miserable existence, and many are"so completely self-contred that no ideal ever touches them. Russia had a first-class upheaval during the war. But in the new economic policy there has been one concession to capitalism after another. Leaders have hail to roly on dictatorship, which most people thought had nothing to do with democracy. Within the Soviet rule foreign concessionaries are getting important and valuable rights. We hear singularly little of the great body or the Russian people. Upheaval does not seem to help anything. And it is quite certain that it does not promote economic democracy, which is what we are shrug gling to attain at the present day. That form of fatalism is useless.”