REIGN OF TERROR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18546, 17 April 1930, Page 7

REIGN OF TERROR.

COMMUNISTS IN FREEZING UNION. By Telegraph—Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH. April 16. A terroristic campaign is reported to have been inaugurated among the freezing workers of the Dominion by a Communistic organisation known as “The Propaganda Committee,” which has been responsible for extension to Canterbury of the recent dispute in the South Otago Freezing Works. Members of this organisation, it is stated, have resorted to personal violence against those who oppose their views and their activities. Mr H. C. Revell, secretary of the New Zealand Freezing Workers’ Federation, was recently the victim of an assault by a much younger man, when visiting the Pareora Freezing Works, and Mr Alex. McLeod, secretary of the Wellington Freezing Workers’ Union, was attacked in his office. It is also reported that Mr H. T. Armstrong, M.P., was attacked personally in Wellington recently by a gang of Communists.

Mr Revell said this morning that members of this self-constituted Committee, while declaring that they were out to fight intimidation and victimisation on the part of the employers, had resorted to far baser methods than the employers could ever descend to. During the past few months an intense struggle had been taking place in the freezing workers’ organisation between the oLicial body and this unofficial Committee. It had been a desperate fight on account of the methods which these men were prepared to adopt in order to gain their ends.