26 February 1971. Thought for the Week:
"The soundest strategy in spreading World Communism is to
postpone military operations until our forces within the other
nations have succeeded in incurring the enemy's moral and
material disintegration, rendering them easy prey for our
mortal blow."
Lenin. |
GROWING REVOLT INSIDE COUNTRY PARTY"Federal Country Party members were accused this week of betraying their party's promises and policy. In a stinging attack at the annual meeting of the party's Polwarth District Council in Colac, a branch secretary declared, 'We will not be betrayed any longer'. Mr. Cedric Turner, secretary of the Nalangil branch and a member of the Country Party for 20 years, said the Federal party had 'reached the end of the line. ' He hinted strongly that he would like to see the Country Party lose the seat of Murray, formerly held by its leader, Sir John McEwen. 'It would seem that the only way we can get through to our members in Canberra is to have them lose a few seats', Mr. Turner said. " Colac Herald ( Victoria). February 19. An analysis of voting patterns in the
Senate Elections last year, and in the N.S.W. and W.A. State
Elections, reveals clearly that the rural community is turning
strongly against the very party, which has traditionally represented
it. If the anti-Askin Government vote had been as strong in
the electorates as it was in the rural areas, Labor would
now be in office in N.S.W. as it is in W.A. The essence of Socialism is progressive centralisation of power, and it is becoming increasingly obvious to traditional supporters of the Coalition at Canberra, that the very politicians elected to office to oppose Socialism, are taking Australia down the Socialist road at an ever-increasing rate. The criticism of the Country Party by the Victorian branch secretary can be heard all over Australia. It is not so long ago that a member of a well-known grazing family in New England, N.S.W. a family which had been a backbone of the Country-Parry, not only resigned in disgust, but widely circulated a statement concerning why he was taking this action. He used much stronger language than that used by Mr. Turner. From Queensland comes a report that a group of Country Party supporters are attempting to form a "Back-to-Principles" movement inside the Country Party in an effort to save the party from threatened disintegration. It is no secret that in the Murray by-election life-long supporters of the Country Party, some still financial members, are recommending that the Country Party candidate be defeated in an endeavour to make it clear to Canberra that constructive action is required. The Colac Herald report of Mr. Turner's protest highlights the major points of the growing dissatisfaction of Country Party supporters. In speaking to a motion that the Federal
Country Party either implement its stated policy or get out
of the Coalition, Mr. Turner said that the Federal Government's
financial policy of high taxation, record interest rates and
"an ever-increasing mountain of public debt" was a long way
from the lower taxes and safeguarding of the people's savings
against inflation" promised in the Country Party policy. Mr.
Turner continued, "There is not a primary producer, small
businessman or worker who is not reeling from the effects
of a financial policy for which Country Party Parliamentarians
must share the blame. Although the Country Party owes its
very existence to the rural population, that population is
today only half of what it was in the thirties and Mr. Anthony
seems intent on eliminating the other half." As non-party objective political commentators, we have been warning for several years that if the Federal Coalition Government continued to depart from its anti-Socialist principles, and progressively intensified policies of centralisation, it would destroy its electoral base. It is naked political blackmail for Liberal and Country Party politicians to threaten what will happen under a Whitlam Government if the Coalition is defeated. The Coalition has by its policies convinced a large number of electors that it is just as Socialistic as the Labor Party, and that there is therefore nothing much to lose by voting ALP. The stated principles of the Country Party and the Liberal Party are excellent as far as they go. Decentralisation has been the very essence of the Country Party's policy. At least the ALP openly states that it is not interested in preserving the Federal system of Government. But the Country Party cannot be surprised if electors become revolted by the hypocrisy of Country Party politicians preaching decentralisation while doing exactly the opposite. The erosion of support for the Country Party can only be halted if the politicians representing that party make every endeavour to implement their own stated policies. The same comment applies to the Federal Liberal Party. The Australian League of Rights is concerned with creating such an informed and active public opinion on the basic principles necessary for a free society that it will find expression both inside and outside the Federal Coalition parties. We therefore regard the growing criticism inside the ranks of the Country Party as a healthy and encouraging development. |
D.L.P. WANTS PACT WITH SOUTH AFRICA"Australia should join in security arrangements with South Africa and any other country prepared to join with us for mutual defence protection, Senator McManus (D.L.P.) said last night". - The Age (Melbourne). February 22. This forthright statement by Senator McManus is further evidence that the unceasing educational work, which the League of Rights has been carrying out, alone, over many years, is now beginning to pay dividends. It is to be hoped that Senator McManus receives strong support for his courageous statement. Now that the Soviet Navy is probing into the Indian Ocean, only a mesmerised moron can fail to see the dangerous implications for Australia. The Japanese are fully aware of the potential threat to their oil supplies, which pass through the Straits of Malacca from the Persian Gulf. Japan may also be looking to Australia as a supplementary source of oil. The Prime Minister Mr. Gorton, now announces that the Federal Government is much more concerned about the Indian Ocean, a vast improvement on the situation when his friend and former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Gordon Freeth, was discounting the Soviet danger. By taking his stand on South Africa, Senator McManus is inviting the wrath of those who manipulate the mass media, who claim to reflect "world opinion." As close observers of this "world opinion" for over a quarter of a century, we note that it subtly undermines our friends, and subtly promotes our enemies. But it is now very clear that our "grass-roots" work is enabling an increasing number of Australians to grasp just what "world opinion" is - and who is creating and fostering it. |
KEEP THAT FUND FLOWING INWe have received several moving letters from old-age pensioners offering to increase their contribution to the League's 1971 basic $25,000 fund if there should be a deficiency. We must reject any suggestion that the few should carry the burden of the fight for freedom, for the many. But we commend the spirit of those who have brought the fund within sight of its objective, to the great majority who have not yet contributed. The League's campaigning goes on relentlessly. The achievements are mounting. But time is also ticking away. Can we have the balance of the League's deficiency in time? Donations from Northern N.S.W. and Queensland to Box 17 Alderley, Queensland, 4051. All others to Box 1052J G.P.O., Melbourne, 3000. |
UNITED KINGDOM DEFIES UN"The British Government has approved the sale to South Africa of seven Westland Wasp naval helicopters... Britain is thus going to ignore the United Nations Security Council embargo on arms sales to South Africa, which successive Conservative governments have said they could not accept." - The Australian, February 24. It is to be hoped that the British Government's defiance of UN policies generally promoted by the Communists, will be carefully noted in Canberra. Australians who have written to the Minister for immigration Mr. P. Lynch protesting against the Gorton Government's decision to keep Rhodesian women tennis players out of Australia, while at the same time permitting Russian women players to enter have been told that the Australian policy was in accordance with the decisions of the UN Security Council. In other words, Mr. Lynch and his colleagues agreed to act as willing rubber stamps of the UN Security Council. We suggest that Mr. Lynch and his colleagues now be asked why they should be so careful to carry out UN policy on the question of who shall enter Australia when the British Government, itself a member of the UN Security Council, demonstrates that it does not have to worry about Council decisions. |
INDUSTRIAL UPHEAVAL THREATENS IN BRITAIN"Mr. Heath and his Government have a fight on their hands. If they had any doubts about the strength of trade union opposition to their policies, yesterday's huge Trafalgar Square rally should have dispelled them, "The Age", Melbourne, February 23. In one of the largest protest demonstrations ever seen in Britain some 100,000 plus unionists signified their opposition to the British Government's Industrial Relations Bill, which will put a hard brake on wage increases, ban wild-cat strikes, and generally make things more difficult for the militants and subversives deeply embedded in British Labor. It won't stop inflation, which is running at a rate of around 8% in Britain at present, but it will feed the flames of industrial unrest. Mr. Heath knows full well that if he can't put a brake on union militancy then Britain's economy will run out of control. The unionists want their 'quite just' wage increases to keep up with inflation. It can be said that Finance produces the crises, which Communism exploits. In this case the militant communists in the unions would demand impossible wage increases with a view to bringing about a revolutionary situation. A further, and more deeply embedded Communist apparatus, highly-trained well-oiled, and just waiting for the right moment, will then swing into action. The situation will need all the stolid balance of the Anglo-Saxon character, and the British genius for compromise to avert the emergence of the revolutionary climate longed-for by our enemies. |
DOSSIERS ON ALL"Vast government-controlled computer
files about individuals could turn America into a police State,
a U.S. senator has warned." The Australian, February
23. There have been many fears expressed concerning government "data banks", which keep files on individuals, even for such apparently harmless purposes as 'social welfare'. The question is really the use to which these "data" banks are put. A totalitarian administration could and would put such information at the ready disposal of its secret police. The compilation of such information is an invasion of privacy of the individual and wrong in principle. |
EXPANDING DEBT BASIC CAUSE OF INFLATIONIn a Paper given last week at a Queensland Country Party Seminar at St. George, Mr. Eric Butler, National Director of the League of Rights, said that events would demonstrate that the Gorton Government was primarily engaged in a public relations exercise. He suggested that if the Government was really convinced that it could start to put value back into the dollar, it could provide an inspiring lead to the whole community by announcing that all Federal politicians' wages, and those of senior public servants, were to be "frozen" for the next three years. Pointing out that expanding debt and
debt charges were a basic cause of the inflation problem,
Mr. Butler provided the following sobering facts concerning
the growth of debt in Australia: The total indebtedness of the Australian people at June 1969, was approximately $50,000 million, but the total amount of money in the hands of the Australian people was just under $14,000 million. The present economic system could only operate without a major breakdown, by an ever-expanding rate of debt finance. In a statement in the Victorian Parliament on March 10, 1970, Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte said that all parties at Canberra were now centralists. Sir Henry Bolte said that over the period from June 1950 to June 1969, State debts had increased from $2,484 million to $10,676 million, while over the same period the net debt of the Commonwealth had fallen from $3,586 million to a credit of $204 million. When a State Government obtained a loan of $1 million tax money from the Commonwealth, it eventually finished up re-paying $2.5 million. |
ON TARGET BULLETINSUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
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