LABOUR AND COMMUNISM.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17502, 8 September 1928, Page 6

LABOUR AND COMMUNISM.

The British. Trades Union Congress has endorsed the action of the executive in accepting the invitation to participate in the Moud Industrial Peace Scheme. This was generally expected, though it was known that there was a strong faction who followed the counsel of Mr A. J. Cook, the militant Communist secretary of the Miners’ Federation, who declares that the interests of employer and employee are antagonistic, and that there should be no friendly co-operation between them. The fact that the rgpert of the council was adopted on a card vote by a majority of 2,500,000 votes is a happy augury; it shows that wise counsels pervade British unionism, and that the advice of the wreckers is being ignored. The unions are full s seized of the menace of Communism, and are taking active steps to purge their membership. Mr Citrine, the secretary of Ltie present Congress, stated recently that the leaders of the Minority Movement were formerly thought of as “nothing more than genuine enthusiasts, well inlentioned but carried away by an excess of zeal for progress,” but now they have been found to bo the agents “of the widespread machinations of Moscow to secure domination over our movement." From Mr Citrine, speaking with the experience and authority of his office, there is the confirmation of the “wrecking tactics” of the Minority Movement; the exploitation of every grievance, the stirring up of resentment and the fostering of indiscipline, lie also has come to know that the leaders of the Minority Movement ai 0 but the puppets of an alien and hostile organisation. “Obedience, implicit obedience, is required. The ringmasters of the Red International raise their whips, and although the performers may yap and bark their protest they climb on their stool promptly though spiritlessly.” Mr Citrine brings a damning indictment against the Minority Movement as a disruptive force, under Communist direction, working for the violent overthrow 01 the social system and the capture of tlie trade union movement for Communist ends. He declared positively that “the principal officers of the. Minority Movement are all paid Communists, and take their instructions from tlie Communist Party.” He puts the Communists in the trade unions in a category apart, denouncing them as men who “have sold their birthright to revolutionary dictators and have tried to corrupt the trade unions they profess to support.” Such is the change of mind that has come over British trade unionism in the space of three years. Nearly every * union in which the Minority Movement has gained a footing is, at last, taking steps to counteract’ the danger, and the vote taken on Thursday at the Trades Union Congress on the Mond Industrial Peace Scheme indicates the progress that is being made.