IS RED REVOLUTION COMING?

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 4

IS RED REVOLUTION COMING?

j UVELY MEETING IN WELLINGTON. j. (Fbom Oub Own Corbespondent.) WELLINGTON, December 21. * In the Post Office Square to-day, during the luncheon hour, there was some stir, , when Mr E. J. Price spoke in the open | air on the above question. Some 400 > people listened to him. He said he was I speaking for the Industrial Peace League, [ but there was certainly little peace at his i meeting. Seamen, wharf labourers, and I other workmen made up the majority of | the audience, and he was gTeatly heckled. “You working men will get the shock of your lives directly,” remarked Mr Price in Teply to a shoal of interjections and questions. “They got their shock in Australia 12 years ago.” A Voice: “You got a shock over prohibition.” At this stage the speaker was counted flat. “Is that the way you are going to rob the unions ?” retorted Mr Price .

A Voice: “Go and drown yourself.” The Speaker: “By your attitude to-day you are only proving my case, that are revolutionaries in New Zealand.” At this stage (says the Post report) the speaker signalled to a policeman to remove a drunken man who attempted to interfere with the platform, and he was again loudly heckled. “Twelve years ago,” he went on, “if a man attempted to criticise the Labour Party in Australia he would have been killed.” A Voice: “You leave the working man alone.” Mr Price '“I am now going to show you how Harry Holland voted. You are supporters of Holland. I am going to tell you the truth. Harry Holland will have to chastise you fellows. He ran three times as a candidate against Labour in Australia,” Voices: “Why do you bring party politics, into it?” and “You’re a twister.” The Speaker: “I am not a twister, but I call him (Mr Holland) one. —(Interruptions.) I have been told that I would be kicked to death if I spoke against the Labour Party in New Zealand. I will speak against it if it panders to revoiu-

tion.” This statement was received by the crowd in hostile manner. A Voice: “Did you go to the war?” Mr Price: “I have been wounded in action.” The Voice: “Did you go to the 1914 war?” At a later stage Mr Price was asked where he enlisted, and an argument took place on the point. Mr Price went on to say that the Labour Party stood for revolution. —(Interruption.) “Well, you chaps,” he went on. “Why is it that every man who interrupts me votes for Labour ?”—(Hooting.) Mr Price, referring to the interruption: “It is only the Labourites showing how they believe in free speech. They are a lot of foolish workmen who imagine that if they down the capitalist everything will -be all right with the Working man. The working men who listen to foolish speakers crying down the capitalist are only displaying their ignorance.” There were, he said, revolutionaries in New Zealand as in other countries, and their voices were sometimes heard. It was only a small minority (less than a hundred) amongst ali the millions of Russia who had started the revolution in that country. It only took a few such men to destroy a country.—(lnterruption and hooting.) In a lull in the noise Mr Price said that the organised interruption proved that the labour Party was revolutionary. In future the Labour Party would have his opposition, “you fellows,” he went on, amidst interruption, “say as Labourites that a man should have the right of free speech, and yet you come here and hoot and interrupt like this. It is chaps like you who killed the Labour Party in Australia. The workers over there are gradually having their eyes opened, and they will have their eyes opened here in the course of time.” Extremism anti revolutionary ideas in this country, ho declared, were scaring away a lot of people who would otherwise be prepared to invest capital in the country, which would benefit the worker. The workers were thereby killing themselves. Mr Price referred to the recent trouble with the seamen, whereupon he was counted out. When the noise subdued he said that by such rowdy hooligan tactics and tyranny the crowd was doing damage to this fair country.—(Derisive shouts.) He thought the seamen were acting very foolishly. It was all the result of following the advice of revolutionary leaders.—(lnterruption.) That was what happened in Russia, where, alter years of slaughter, the high-salaried manager was etill in existence. He believed in methods of law and order.—(lnterjections.) At any rate, without boasting, he could say he was doing a thing that day that had never been done in Wellington before. Singlehanded he was daring to speak the truth about the working class and revolutionary ideas.—(Laughter.) It was easy to say: “Down with the boss.” Some 28 years ago a party of 200 revolutionists left Sydney for South America to establish a new republic where they would not be troubled by the cursed capitalist.—(Repeated interruption and obeers for the Labour Party). Eventually, he went on, the Australian Government had to repatriate them. He agreed that the workers were justified in attempting to run industry for themselves. He was not opposed to that, and would like to see it done, but the workers had to show that they were competent to run industry. A Voice: Who runs it now? The speaker said that if he were given a chance he would answer the question. The men who ran the industries were more or less high-salaried men who had got on .in life by hard work. —(Dissent.) In 95 per cent, of the cases the managers of industry were men who had risen from the lowest positions by dint of hard work. — (Cries of “What rot.”) “I wonder,” he said, “how industry would get on if it was handed to fellows like you who won’t even give a man a fair hearing at an open-air meeting.”