The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1948. THE FEDERATION OF LABOUR CONFERENCE

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 May 1948, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1948. THE FEDERATION OF LABOUR CONFERENCE

THE conference of the Federation of Labour has attracted much 1 attention this year because it was believed beforehand that the Communists would be challenging both the leaders of the Federation itself and the leaders of the Government. Mr. Fraser was proclaimed to be singled out for especial attention and it was prophesied that he would receive a very unhappy reception when he spoke at Dunedin. • The Communists had their leading personalities at the Conference, they being there by reason of the support they received in individual unions. That they failed to secure support from the ranks of the other trades unionists in the securing of Federation appointments was hailed as a measure of success for the Moderates. The ballots certainly revealed no widespread movement in the direction of Communism, and if anything there was a shying away from it. The Prime Minister, far from being hattled over the coals by the rank and file, seems to have won a personal victory, establishing his control over the Federation to the extent that it gave him an endorsement of his policy, ' Mr. Fraser has been charged by many of the rank-and-file with having raised the Communist bogey in order to win a consolidation of The Party’s ranks and so give to himself and his colleagues a longer lease of life in office. This ungenerous view, it is claimed, is supported by the smallness of the Communist minority within the ranks of Labour, which smallness is evidence of the absence of any Communist danger which Mr. Fraser has spent so much time dramatising. Such a point of view does not take into account the fact that Communism is a doctrine that seeks to win to Utopia by way of chaos and that it requires a very little sand to wreck delicate machinery. The fact that many hours of work are lost in New Zealand resulting in a slow down in production through stoppages at vital points should give food for thought to those who accuse the Prime Minister of parading a Communist bogey. Notwithstanding the inability of the .avowed Communists to secure office in the Federation of Labour that failure does not displace them from positions in which they may and do insert sand in the economic machine of the Dominion The fact that the Federation of Labour can subscribe funds in support of a Communist inspired strike which is directly aimed at the Gov ernment and which also throws back the production of electricity upon which so much employment and production depends reveals that the Communists can afford to wait: their work is being done for them, words to the contrary notwithstanding.