STOP THE MISCHIEF OF AN INFILTRATING SECTION

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 6172, 12 March 1948, Page 4

STOP THE MISCHIEF OF AN INFILTRATING SECTION

THE EDITOR'S COMMENT.

WORDS should not be necessary to convince the majority of people in the Western world and particularly in this Dominion, that at last the Communist menace has come right into the open. The events of the past few weeks in Central Europe have been far more convincing than any words could be.

Surely it has been made plain in Czechoslovakia the objective of the Russian-directed menace and the purges that have recently been made in that country do not, by any means, suggest either freedom or toleration; but they are vital to the maintenance of democracy. • Here is what the Wellington Dominion had to say recently: "One of the great thinkers of last century once said that a constitutional Opposition was a capital invention of freedom, but Obviously it has no placein a Communist State. The place for opponents in that regime is either the gallows, the concentration camp, or the prison." It has been reported by overseas journals that large numbers of Hungarians have crossed the frontier into Austria, having been given the option of joining the Communist Party or being put into a concentration camp. The position was very clearly stated by the Manchester Guardian recently. The Mr Pollitt mentioned is secretary of the Communist Party in Britain. The paper said: "The Communists are not a genuine British party, but the subservient agents of a foreign power. They change, their opinions and their tactics at the bidding of men who do not even take the trouble to consult them .... They (British Trade Unions) know from the Communist tactics in France and Italy and from Mr Pollitt's recent statement that the Communist aim is to create strikes and to hamper production. The Communists are become, on Moscow's orders, the enemies of Western recovery." Maintenance of the right of individual freedom has so far precluded democratic countries from "purging" even the enemies of freedom, although logically the Communists would have no cause to protest if that were done It is their own method and they should be prepared to take what they so readily give.

The immediate task which fronts democratic countries the world over—and not the least in this Dominion—is to devise methods whereby the power for mischief of this infiltrating section is lessened if- not altogether wiped out. We have already said that the task is not the least for this country and of late years we have had plenty of evidence of Communistic obstruction. The latest example occurs in a district not so many miles from our own and priority number one national undertaking is held up. The reason why extremists obtain positions in the industrial world where they can exercise influence is admitted to be the apathy of the people. A stand has got to be taken today right from the Government downwards and it would seem that the latest strike at Maraetai might well be the turning point. The community has got to realise that unrest, organised discontent, and whatever degree of confusion can be created in the public mind are means to an end, and the end is the tyranny of totalitarian control.