ATTRACTING MEMBERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26779, 24 May 1948, Page 6

ATTRACTING MEMBERS

ANTI-COMMUNIST CAMPAIGN

THANKS FOR MR SEMPLE Special Correspondent WELLINGTON, May 23. New Zealand’s Minister of Works, Mr Semple, ought to be thanked by Communists for the campaign he was conducting against them, said Mr Claude Jones president of the Communist Party’ of Queensland, who is here to attend the triennial conference of the New Zealand Communist Party and who addressed a public meeting tonight. Mr Jones said that m Queensland more and more people were joining the Communist Party as a result of the intensive campaign against it. He understood that the same thing was happening in New Zealand. , Mr Jones declared that Mr Semple s book, “ Why I Fight Communism, was neither true nor original. He had read much of the same material m Publications sponsored in Australia by the Liberal. Party and Mr Menzies. As for Mr Semples references to the Queensland railway strike, the facts were that the Queensland workers were very happy in 'their so-called detea because the result was an grease of £750,000 in the pay envelopes of the railwayrrien, and this t had opene way also for wage increases in the nublic service and many othr sections of industry. The workers achievemem was a blow against the low-wage nolicv of the Queensland Labour GovKS? which had daUberalely kept Queensland workers on a lc, wer r ate than the workers of other States in order to attract overseas capitalists to invest their money in Queensland. Mr Jones plans to make a tour of the South Island later, including Christchurch, Dunedin, and the West coast.