RAIDS ON COMMUNISTS

Taranaki Daily News, 10 December 1931, Page 7

RAIDS ON COMMUNISTS

RELENTLESS HUNT IN N.S.W. EXCITING SCENES WITNESSED. REDS ARMED WITH BLUDGEONS. SUDDEN ROUT BY THE NEW GUARD. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 12.50 ami. Sydney, Dec. 9. Since the raids commenced upon Communists at Bourke recently Communists all over the States have been hunted relentlessly, the police in every instance saving them from the roughest handling. Exciting scenes occurred to-day at Woollongong, a coal mining centre, where it would be expected the Communists would have many sympathisers. Lawrence Sharkey, a Communist Senate candidate, had just began to address an open-air meeting opposite the soldiere’ memorial hall when he was dislodged from his soap-box and sent sprawling to the ground. His Communist friends rushed to his aid armed with pieces of iron pipe and similar weapons, but they were unable to use them owing to’a sudden onslaught by hundreds of members of the New Guard' and returned soldiers, who, carefully organised, had the Communists on the run before they were able to strike a blow.

Police ans others pursued the ' crowd and, fearing that the Communists would be lynched, arrested eight for their own safety. The members of the New Guard returned to the Communists’ hall, sang Rule Britannia and burned the flag and a quantity of Communist literature. They would have wrecked the building but for police intervention. A similar gathering at the Lane Cove suburb received milder treatment, the Communists on this occasion being forced to accept police escort to tramcars.