BOLSHEVISM IN NEW ZEALAND.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15204, 17 October 1919, Page 3

BOLSHEVISM IN NEW ZEALAND.

MB't. A. H. FIELD, M.P., ATTACKS

In the course of a speech in the House of Representatives the, other night Mr T A H Field, M.l*, for Nelson, dealt trenchantly with the extreme labour element in this country and .its representatives in Parliament. -In the course of his remarks he said:—l wish to say a word about the extreme Labour element in this House and in tins country. JVo are constantly hearing the phrase We of the Labour Party" in this House. Well what does "We of the Labour party mean? It means this, Sir: there are eight Labour members in this House, and they are divided into fnree different parties. One of these Labour parties is composed of loyal men who have the respect of every member of this House, and I believe of every right-minded parson in this country. As far as 1 l'»n judge the attitude of the pSople of tins Dominion I believe they would just as soon see a Labour party, if it were ci-m----posed of loyal men such as these, as ary other party on the Treasury benches. Then we have the extreme Labour element in the House.- They are still further divided into two parties, as was shown when they elected their cbar'tnan some little time ago. It was reported in one of the Wellington newspapers tiuit the division was two 'votes for Mr MeCombs and tivo votes for Mr Holland, and the chairman of the party was selected by drawing lots from a hat. Those three honourable members Decause they Avon the toss call themselves, grandiloquently. "We of. the Labour party." Who do these extremists really represent? They represent, first of all, the alien element in New Zealand; and the alien element in Australia and m England, is very largely Bolshevist and revolutionary. ' Many of th. v x : aliens have left their own country anu come to New Zealand for reasons best kmrvn to themselves. Some of them are masquerading under British names ' ' Mr McCombs.—Were you born m rJew Zealand? Mr T. A. H. Field.—l was born in Victoria and came here when I was four years of age. These extremists u»present, in the second place, the Sinn l(>t in clement—the irreconcilable Irish element. They represent, in the third place, the faddists, many of whom are impractical dreamers, earnest people carried away by theories, and tliey are led by the sophistries of the extremists. It also represents the. pro-German element in New Zealand. This .-li'pn element is largely Bolshevist. A constituent of mine who was in Wellington during the last fortnight to meet one of ris soldier sons returning by a transport, saw in his boarding house a fnr»»jgr.rtr, apparently a foreign Jew, busy seM.mg Bolshevist literature to young men of nineteen of twenty years of age. He was selling pamphlets worth *2d »>r 3d for Is and Is 6d, and preaohing Bolshevism. He remonstrated with the riien, and told him that if New Zealand w-is not good enough for him he ought to leave it. They came to high vords. He

later saw the same man in tha stieet distributing the same class of literature to young men. This is part «>f a X sieuiatic Bolshevist campaign througaout 'ho British Empire. It has gonijj oa in England, with the r« h ult muni.ciii'dby Mr Lloyd George 11 h*lveent fpeeuion the great strike. I have here an English paper, which says:— -S invasion of this country by aliens will be a far graver rnenjw luthe future than it was before tli 3 n.u "- nflux of aliens has tended to Q standard of life in tins country morid!^ intellectually, and physically. *v ithei proof of this is shown by *«»«J coju^e {luring air.raids and thenv shu fang Jf military duties instead of assisting the Country which has given them nospitalitv Industrial unrest, sedition, vice of all "kinds, especially the 'white slave' traffic? and disease are all fostered by the alien element here." . The Germans even during the war were organising a great Peace oftensive. it was the Germans who spread the poison gas of Bolshevism which has destroyed Russia and is threatening to disintegrate half the countries of Europe. This* Bolshevist propaganda is especially directed against the British Empire, undermining British authority, encouraging a separafist spirit in India, Ugyp*> and the East. This is the sort of thing they are publishing. This leaflet is published by the British. Bolshevists, lhe •'Daily Chronicle" of 23rd April, 1919, stated that £1.500.000 was in the hands of known Bolshevik agents for this propaganda in France, Italy, and Great Britain. _ , Mr Young. Did any of that money find its way into New Zealand ? . . .. Mr T. A. H. Field. That is just the question. lam inclined to think it did. Now, Sir, they are distributing tins sort of literature with that money, and there are German hands engineering the work. The aim is to disintegrate the British Empire, to break down the treaty terms, and to get out of the payments for reparation that Germany has to make. This pamphlet is headed "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," and reads as follows :— "There are two classes of people on earth, the workers and the bosses. The workers live by working. The bosses live by profiteering. But the bosses are on top. They get all the plums of life. They are the privileged class. Workers have to be satis*ed with the leavings. They get poor food, poor clothes, poor houses. They have to be humble and do as they are told. They have to keep in their place. And that place is underneath so long as they let the bosses bebosses. They are the bottom dogs in England. They were the same in Itussia, but they kicked the bosses off. No profiteers in Ruseia now. The workmen manage their own affairs and they look after themselves. No kow-towing. No bullying by incompetent snobs. No sweating. No starvation wages. In Russia every workman's family has food guaranteed. In Russia every • workman's family has clothes guaranteed, la Russia evpj\v workman's family has shelter guaranteed. Workmen in Russia can jifford to buy decent clothes. Workmen

in Russia can afford a bit of comfort and luxury. Workmen in Russia can afford to educate their clever children. Workmen xn Russia can afford to spend their leisure Hours like men instead of pigs. People don't starve in Russia while food and clothes are obtainable. Farmers don't get evicted in Russia, for the Farmers' Councils control the farms. Workmen don't get sacked in Russia, for the Workmen's Councils control the factories. The Government finds work for every one who is willing, at trade union rate of pay. The ouly out-of-works in Russia to-day are profiteers, landlords, stockbrokers,' gamblers, etc. Nobody loves the bossea in Russia now. , All the money goes in wages. There is none left for the profiteer." •; The mass of the workers fully appreciate reasonable arguments against Bolshevism, but if the field is left to the preachers of these false doctrines it is not surprising if many workers think them unanswerable. They^are spread for the purpose of inflaming Vne passions ■of ignorant and vindictive masses. The | .British Empire Union has published this and headed it-"The Bolshevist Lie," and on the opposite page of the pamphlet .they publish the truth as follows :— "Food.—ln one month, 8,000 people 'died of starvation in Petrograd, or nearly 300 a day. Typhus and small-pox are raging! Bodies lie unburied! . Manual workers receive less than £lb of bread a day; all other people receive less. Bread is £1 16s to £2 4s a pound; tea and coffee, £15 a pound; butter, £7 10s a pound; sugar, £9 a pound; potatoes, 16s to £1 a pound. Fuel is hardly obtain* able and all provisions very scarce, i ' 'Freedom.—There is no freedom. Bolshevik spies are everywhere. No publio meetings are allowed. None but Bolshevik papers may be published. Hundreds of civilians Have been murdered. Women and gills have been made com- ' mon property. "Work. —Industry is dying. In Petrograd eighty-three factories closed in one , ntonth. In Moscow, all^ electricity to , factories has been stoppeel through lack of fuel. On the railways, traffic is very .irregular owing to slTortage of coal and ' locomotives. Hardly any new engines are being made. At the Putiloff Works which used to employ 15,000 men, one engine ha? been made under Bolshevik i control at a cost of, 4,000,000 roubles, or 1 £400,000 at Hie pre-war value of the rouble. Not only the so-called bosses but thf workers are idle, starving, and enslaved." ! The Bolshevik element in England will ' not allow free speech in any meeting ' they can dominate, and wo will find the same thing probably happening at candidates' meetings in the coming election in New Zealand. We have this alien element to contend against' in New Zealand, and it is one of the elements of the extreme Labour party, who speaftj of themselves xipon the floor of the House as "We of the Labour party" and pretend they are the only representatives of labour in this House. When the president of this party, the Hon. Mr Pauh was addressing the annual conference in July he said:. "It is incumbentupon us not to provide ammunition for the enemy." This is the reason why these honourable gentlemen make, for them, moderate speeches, especially when they are addressing farmers. They have "been told toy the "president of the Labour party to camouflage, so as not to provide any ammunition for their opponents a.t the coming elections. But their real opinions can be ascertained from their official organ, the "Maoriland Worker." By the way, it is rather interesting to note in passing, when we hear so much aboiit labour principles, and labour policy, especially labour land policy, to notice that one of the extremists, a Mr Rod Ross, wrote to the editor of that! paper and complained that their land policy did not go sufficiently far in the direction desired. It was not sufficiently revolutionary for him. The editor of the paper replied in a footnote something to the effect that it did not matter very much what the policy said as they could alter it as they pleased. If that ia the case it sHows how mucn value can be attached to any policy brought forward b y the Labour party. Bui, Sir t you can hardly pick up any copy of this paper, "Maoriland Worker," the official organ of the so-called Labour party, in which there are not articles in favour of Bolshevism. Here is one of the 23rd of July, 1919, and it says: | "While Lenin remains the most abused and most misunderstood of men, he is doing splendid work." And the whole article goes on in' the same strain. Then on the 16th July it publishes a Bolshevik leaflet which it says represents a photographic reproduction of the Bolshevik leaflet circulated among Allied troops in Murmansk that produced a mutiny of American troops. That is quoted in full and is published on the 16th July. Then there is another article about Bolshevism—■ I am quoting dates so as to show that those are not isolated articles, But that they are continually appearing in their official organ, and therefore must T3e a part of the real platform of the so-call-ed Labour party, especially as an agreement was entered into between this paper and the so-called Labour party at tho l^st annual conference of the party in July. On the 30th April, 1919, in article on "Moderate Bolshevism"— whatever the adjective may mean, it was stated— ' 'There is nothing the average Briton (who hates exercising his thinking- faculties) hates so much as new ideas. The less he knows about them the more,he hates them. .When lie gets usedjbo Bolshevism he will be quite willing'to take it in small doses, etc." In Britain a lai'ge section of tho work-people are thoughtful moderate men, but they have allowed—like the workers in New Zealand—the organisation of thejr unions and lodges to fall into the hands of the blatant and aggressive extremist minority. That is occurring also in New Zealand, and terrorism is one of the methods used by the extremist to bring this about. 1 know of a letter from one of the mining towns, in which a worker stated, writing to a friend of his, that it had come to such a pitch in that district that €he moderate workers gave up even being on school committees. He said that if they dared to express an opinion contrary to the extremists, not only were their lives made..a misery to them, "but their wives and children were ostracised and persecuted. That is what it is coming to in Now Zealand under the hands of this extremist minority who prate of liberty and disclaim against Prussianism. Hero is something that we _have continually ', in this House. It is this: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can 'be no peace so long as hunger and want are to be found among, millions of workiua; people, and the few who >make up the employing class have all the good things of life. "Between those two classes-a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organise as a class, take possession of the work and the machinery of production and abolish,»the wage system."

Almost every speeoli of the member ?av Groy and th^ member for Wellington P-mvth is ringing; the changes upon these statements. They are the first two clauses of the I.W.W. preamble.