COMMUNISTS MEET TROUBLE IN THREE AUSTRALIAN STATES

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 November 1949, Page 5

COMMUNISTS MEET TROUBLE IN THREE AUSTRALIAN STATES

SYDNEY, Yesterday (PA). Communists met trouble* in three States last night. The police were called in at meetings at Rockhampton (Queensland), Ganmain and Coolamon (in the Riverina district of New South Wales), and at Bendigo (Victoria).

At Rockhampton a crowd of 4000 hurled fire crackers at three Communist speakers. This was followed up with showers of rotten cucumbers tomatoes and eggs, after which members of the crowd lit two large stink bombs. The police confiscated from a youth an air rifle and slugs. The speakers included th? Communist barrister Max Julius. Finally the police linked arms to hold the crowd back while a Communist truck drove off at speed. At Bendigo the police surroundea the Trades Hall and prevented Melbourne Communists from holding a meeting. Union leaders, including J. J. Brown, State secretary of the Railways Union, and W. Bird, State president of the Seamen s Union, then addressed a hostile crowd outside the building. Entrance was refused by the trustees of the Traces Hall. About 60 school teachers demonstrated outside Federation HousePhillip Street, after they had been barred from what they described as a “Communist-organised meeting” inside the building. Members of the teachers’ anti-Communist league, who were trying to gain admittance, clashed at the entrance with teachers who were opposed to the league. The meeting from which they were barred was attended by about 250 primary and secondary teachers and was called a “rally in support of the teachers’ federation policy and leadership.” Press reporters were barred, and a special committee of men and women teachers carefully screened those entering the building. A meeting of those denied admittance, who included 20 headmasters and deputy headmasters, 14 headmistresses and six members of the Teachers’ Federation, "while deploring the damage done to its prestige by those officials who advocated the cause of those who would undermine the democratic State.”