A BAN ON COMMUNISTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27384, 9 May 1950, Page 6

A BAN ON COMMUNISTS

The Communist Party Dissolution Bill now before the Australian Federal Government is one of the most controversial measures ever to come before a British Parliament. The real issue is one of principles, not policy, and the pros and cons will long be a subject for debate, perhaps as long as there is freedorn for debate. If it be conceded that the pattern of events in China and in South-east Asia is to be interpreted as the development of a Communist front in a not-so-cold war, the result of which will have a most serious effect on Australia, it may be argued that a situation exists in which the security of the State is endangered and that the normal privileges of the individual have to be curtailed as in other national emergencies but the validity of such an analogy is to be carefully examined. Internally, the economic life of Australia has in recent years been repeatedly retarded by industrial warfare in which Communist leaders of trade unions have been prominent. The history of these strikes creates the impression that the ostensible dispute was not the real cause of the prolonged cessations of work. Still, it has to be considered if conspiracy of this nature does necessarily require the sort of action provided in the Bill which Mr Menzies has introduced. Dean Hewlett Johnson has not been slow to point out that precedents for the ban were supplied by Tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperialist Japan. Such implicit comparisons will not make the proposal any more attractive to the great majority of people, but such an emotional reaction would be based on error. It does not follow that Australia is on the high road to becoming a totalitarian State. The converse of the dean’s criticism should be more thoughtprovoking. A ban on the Communist Party has not been imposed, so far, in any other democratic State—not in Great Britain, where internal and external security is more greatly affected than in Australia, and not in the United States where even a whisper of the word “Communist’' appears to induce a near-hysteria in many people in responsible offices. Mr Menzies has made out a good case in answer to the classic objections which are raised against the outlawry of Communism. It is true that the menace is new in form and that the traditional attitudes must be re-examined. Communism is a treasonable conspiracy against the existing governments in all non-Communist States. It is prepared to use force or fraud to attain power, and it can win its victory without a shot being fired on either side and triumph in spite of the fact that the majority of the people may hold it in abhorrence. It is quite another matter —and one which must receive the closest attention —whether the Bill in its present form is the most desirable type of such legislation. To declare an action a criminal one after it has been performed, and to hold an accused person guilty until he proves his own innocence, represent departures from the practice of British justice which must be studied in relation to circumstances

other than those of the present Bill. Both provisions might be justifiable in relation to Communism provided the limits to such action are strictly defined. By this measure, in its intention and in its details, Australia has given the world something to think about. If the Bill becomes law, the success or failure of its application will be carefully studied on all sides—but the results will not be apparent for some years, perhaps too late to be of use to other countries. As the New York Times has pointed out, the problem is one that, sooner or later, must be faced by all democracies.