The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA.” WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1924. LABOUR AND COMMUNISM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19007, 7 May 1924, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA.” WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1924. LABOUR AND COMMUNISM

The doings of those organisations which claim to be representative of Labour in the Commonwealth are not without significance to the people of New Zealand. The big continent is our nearest neighbour, and, as everybody knows, the men who speak for Labour in the Australian States have much in common with the men who shape the Party’s policy in this Dominion. We are, therefore, more or less directly interested in what happened at the conference of the Australian Labour Party in Sydney last month. It was, to say the least of it, a peculiar happening. First, by 154 votes to 102, the conference endorsed the action of its executive in declaring members of the Communist Party ineligible for membership in the A.L.P. And then, almost in the same breath, it carried a resolution appointing a committee of five—two from the Communists’ supporters, and two from the opposition faction, with an independent chairman—“to go into the matter of affiliations, with a view to securing a united front.” Which means, as a justifiably cynical commentator has aptly put it, “We don’t want to be seen with them, but we’d like to have their support all the same.” Mr. J. M. Baddeley, M.L.A., who moved this resolution, is reported to have made a somewhat remarkable speech. In the conference, he said, there was one section, perhaps 150 strong, and there was another section, about 110 strong; and if one section sang “The Red Flag” while the other sang “God Save the King,” there could not be unity—and what was needed was a united front. In other words, anything for a “united front”—but don’t talk about it too much. The Daily Telegraph assumes, however, that tho general public will talk about it a great deal. It is plain, it says, that the discordant duet referred to is too jarring to be healthy; but if the red-flaggers will not sing “God Save the King,” and the loyalists will not sing “The Red Flag,” how can there be any affiliation worthy of the name? Those who are not for us are against us; and that is as true of political parties as it is of anything else. The difference between the Socialists 'and tho Communists is that the former believe in gaining their ends by political, or evolutionary, methods, while the latter believe in revolutionary means. In this case, however, the Communists are quite [willing to use the Labour Party in the hope that it may hasten the good time coming, when Australia shall fall out of the Socialist frying pan into the Soviet fire. The leader of Parliamentary Labour, Mr. Lang, has utterly repudiated Communism and all its works, just as Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, the British Labour leader, has done. In Britain, the request by the Communists for affiliation was turned by an overwhelming majority. The work-

era of Great Britain arc not enamoured of this party, which does not stand for political action, but has no scruples in using politicians to hasten “tho revolution.” That the Communists have been endeavouring to white-ant the Australian Labour movement is well-known. By the endorsement of its executive’s action the A.L.P. Conference declared the Communists ineligible, on tho ground that they belong to another party; but if a “united front” is to be secured by affiliation, it can only be brought about by swallowing tho doctrines of Communism. And if that is done, then the Communist Party will become the virtual dictators of Labour’s policy.