REVOLT IN RANKS

Wairarapa Daily Times, 24 August 1936, Page 5

REVOLT IN RANKS

AUSTRALIAN LABOUR PARTY MANY EXPULSIONS. Preaa Association Electrio Telegraph—Coryright SYDNEY, Sunday. Wholesale expulsions were ordered by a special conference of 'tlie Australian Labour Party. Pour members of the Legislative Assembly, Messrs. Heffron, Lazzarini, Horsington and Davidson, and 17 leaders of the industrial revolt against Mr J. T. Lang, Leader of the New South Wales State Labour Party, wfie expelled for attending the Labour Council “black” conference on Ist August. The four members of the Legislative Assembly attended this meeting as “observers.”

The expulsions were recommended by a secret investigation committee. Altogether 54 trades union officers and delegates were listed as liable to automatic expulsion, but expulsion was confirmed only in the case of 17. Prior to considering the report of the secret investigation committee the conference carried resolutions of confidence in Mr J. T. Lang and Mr J. A. Beasley, leader of the New South Wales Labour Party in the Federal House of Representatives. The voting frr the expulsions was 67 to 24. The investigation committee’s findings included the following: “We reached the conclusion that the purposes of the Labour Council ‘bogus’ conference were: (1) To try to intimidate the State executive and delegates to the Federal Australian Labour Party conference in Adelaide to facilitate the readmission to the movement of Mr J. S. Garden without his having to appeal to the annual general conference in accordance with the rules. (2) To endeavour to organise the disaffected group within the party for such purposes of intimidation. (3) To secure disaffiliation of certain groups in the interests of the Communist Party.”

The expulsions of trades union leaders include representatives of printers, furnishing trades, bricklayers, boot trades, postal workers, boilermakers, engineers, miners and railway workers. On the committee’s recommendation the conference declined to cancel affiliation of the 28 unions which took part in the Labour Council “b’lack” conference. These were previously declared by the Australian Labour Party executive as “automatically expelled.’’ A CRISIS APPROACHING. (Received Monday, 11.35 a.m.) • SYDNEY, This Day. The “Herald” says that defiant statements issued by the expelled members of Parliament and the Trades Union leaders indicate that the decisions of the Labour Party Conference will probably precipitate one of the biggest crises in the State Labour movement within recent years. The “Herald” adds: “Union secretaries at the Trades Hall confident that Mr Lang and liis supporters are' nearing the end of their regime as controllers of the State Labour movement.”