ST.JOHN VERSUS GORTON

As Federal President, I completely support my colleagues on Federal executive who, as presidents in their own particular States, have already affirmed, in their most positive terms, their confidence in, and loyalty to the Prime Minister. "Indeed, the opinion of the Liberal Party organisation throughout Australia utterly repudiates Mr. St.John's tactics and attitudes. "I have never before witnessed such an immediate and unequivocal reaction from the State divisions of our party." - Mr. J. E. Pagan, Federal President of the Liberal Party, The Sun, Melbourne, March 25.

In 1966 Mr. Pagan had his attention drawn to some very disturbing facts about Mr. St.John's affiliation with Communist front organisations. It was not suggested that Mr. St.John was a Communist, but he was undoubtedly being used very successfully by these who understood the important tactic of using a well-known and respected name to put forward proposals favourable to the advancement of socialist-communist objectives. On that occasion Mr. Pagan made it clear in reply to Mr. St.John's critics that he had every faith in the "tactics and attitudes" of the endorsed member for Warringah.

It had been pointed out that Mr. St. John in his capacity as President of the South Africa Aid and Defence Fund, banned by the South African Government as a front aiding the defence of known communist revolutionaries, was sponsoring the visit of Mr. Robert Resha of the African National Congress. Irrefutable evidence given at the Rivonia trial in South Africa showed the close co-operation between the A.N.C. and the Communist Party with an avowed aim to massacre the 3,000,000 whites in South Africa, and destroy their property. It seemed incredulous that the Liberal Party should endorse a man who was seemingly blind to the credentials of those he supported.
Mr. Resha disclaimed being a communist of course; words have no moral value to such individuals.

A few months prior to his visit to Australia, Mr. Resha had been in Cuba to the Tri-Continental Conference of Communist powers, and had in typical communist pattern called for the completion of successful war against imperialism. It had also been pointed out to Mr. Pagan and other responsible members of the Liberal Party that Mr. St.John had worked with the Australian National Television Council which has as its objective furthering State control of television broadcasting. On the A.N.T.C. were well- known leftwing members of the N.S.W. Teachers Federation, and its address was the same as the Teachers Federation.

Mr. St. John had also defended Mr. Francis James in court against a charge of publishing pornographic literature. Mr. James was well known for his sympathy for the communist cause in Vietnam and as an apologist for the Red Chinese. These attitudes of Mr. St.John were clearly incompatible with the stated policies and objectives of the Liberal Party. Mr. St.John should have been advised to seek endorsement in the Labor Party, or to stand as an Independent. However it is ironic that amongst all the self-righteous humbug and moral hypocrisy Mr. St.John is leveling at Mr. Gorton there are also serious charges which once again the Liberals would do well to look at if they are to survive as a party giving leadership, freedom and security.
Mr. St.John pointed to the increasing centralism, the plight of the States as the arrogance of the centralists increases, and the danger of one man rule, an inevitable consequence of the process of concentration of power.

There is increasing evidence that the Liberals at Canberra are compromising and blinding themselves to the monster they are creating, and in rallying to the defence of Mr. Gorton there is a great danger that opposition to his disastrous centralist policies will be squashed. The tantalising thought is whether those who advise Mr. St.John and have received his help in the past to aid socialist causes, do not also realise this could be an outcome of Mr. St.John's personal attack on Mr. Gorton.

It is interesting that the leftwing of the Labor Party refused to criticise Mr. Gorton, thus leaving the field clear to the Liberal Party to vent their wrath on Mr. St.John. The furtherance of Socialism by the Liberal Party is the key objective of those socialists who understand fully the working out of the dialectic. In the St.John - Gorton affair they may well have a major victory.

MR. DENNIS BRUTUS OF THE SOUTH AFRICA DEFENCE AND AID FUND

The Communist weekly newspaper, Tribune, March 19 features a leading article on the attributes of Mr. Dennis Brutus, another nominee of S.A.D.A.F. sent to Australia and New Zealand, to collect funds from the gullible, as well as the committed antagonists of the South African Government. Mr. Brutus advocates violence as the only means of changing South Africa's racial policies.

Mr. Eric Butler, National Director of the Australian League of Rights, arrived in New Zealand in the wake of a national storm of controversy concerning the visit by the former South African Mr. Dennis Brutus, who was given wide publicity for his attacks on both South Africa and Rhodesia, and his appeal to New Zealanders to stop playing rugby with the South Africans, The Anglican Dean of Christchurch heard Mr. Butler tell a receptive Christchurch Rotary luncheon on March 11, that he was dismayed and depressed when Church leaders endorsed the activities of revolutionaries like Dennis Brutus without checking on their backgrounds.
Many Anglicans had protested when the Anglican Bishop of Christchurch, the Rt. Rev. W. A. Pyatt, had chaired a meeting for Mr. Brutus in the local Anglican Cathedral.

During his New Zealand programme Mr. Butler exposed the affiliations of Mr. Brutus, and warned that those who financially aided the South African Defence and Aid Fund were in fact helping to finance Communist backed terrorism in Southern Africa. Mr. Butler pointed out that some of Mr. Brutus's reported claims were complete fabrications. He had given a completely false picture of conditions in the South African prison on Roben Island. Mr. Brutus had deliberately lied when he claimed Africans North of South Africa were not trying to enter Rhodesia and South Africa, but were forced to come and work by the Portuguese. Large numbers of Africans from Malawi and other African countries have voluntarily gone to work in both Rhodesia and South Africa.

Mr. Butler gave 8 lectures during his New Zealand programme and one radio interview. There was excellent press coverage. He also spoke at a garden party arranged by the New Zealand-Rhodesia Association in Auckland on Sunday afternoon, March 16. The central theme of his New Zealand address was that New Zealand and Australia should act jointly to recognise the reality of Rhodesia's independence, and to foster closed defence and trade agreements with Africa. He said that he has no doubt that such a move would have a most stimulating effect on a Western world struggling on the defensive against the increasing pressure of International Communism. Mr. Butler left for the U.S.A. on March 17. Over the next five months he will be providing exclusive first hand reports from various parts of the world. These will be published in On Target and the Intelligence Survey.

ECONOMIC REALISM EMERGING FROM RURAL SPOKESMEN

"The Australian Primary Producers' Union yesterday accused the Arbitration Commission and the Tariff Board of encouraging inflation in Australia." The Sun, Melbourne, March 11.

Mr. A. A. Dawson, chief executive officer for the APPU made the above submission to Federal Cabinet in Canberra. He suggested that some form of cost compensation might be paid to primary producers to offset the increased costs of production over which they had no control. The Sun of March 17, reported from Perth on a plan put forward by the Australian Wool and Meat Producers Federation to pay a subsidy to woolgrowers calculated on their gross wool return. The President, Mr. R. V. Sewell said producers must be compensated for constantly rising costs, which were outside their control. The Wimmera Mail-Times. March 21 reports Mr. P. J. Meehan, president Victorian Farmers Union Grains Division as saying "wheat growers had to demand reductions in costs, or subsidy payments, for the economic burden imposed upon them by government policies."

The reaction to the above criticism by the government's economic advisers is demonstrated in the decision to allow a rise in the price of butter by 3 to 5 cents a lb. Such action will benefit no one, but lead to an aggravation of the present position. Buyer resistance to butter will increase, the increased price will push up the cost of living leading to demands for wage increases, which in turn will push up general costs of production to all sections of the community. The increase will be dissipated in a short time leaving the dairymen just as dissatisfied. But the Government will allow the necessary expansion of credit for the purpose of financing the increase. The same credit could have just as easily been used to allow the consumers of butter a 3 to 5 cents subsidy for every lb of butter they buy. Such a payment would not go through the book keeping of the nation as a cost, but as direct purchasing power to the consumer. The dairymen would sell more butter and keep down their costs. Those recommending such an increase are deliberately sabotaging the economy of the nation, and creating political unrest easily exploited by militant unionists and radical political agents.

DEFICIENCY FUND REPORT

RACE AGAINST TIME IN NUCLEAR SUPERIORITY OF SOVIET

"The Soviet Union is building blockbusters which threaten to knock out American missile sites unless they are defended, the new Pentagon team said yesterday" - The Australian, March 22.

There appears to be some recognition of the dangerous position the U.S. and the free world now face due to the sabotage of vital defensive weapons by the Johnson administration. It also seems to be clearer that the role played by the former Secretary of Defence, Mr. Robert McNamara has been disastrous to the Welfare of the U.S. and her Allies. Press reports in the last week have repeatedly linked McNamara with costly failures of disastrous decisions affecting the defence of the West. The Sun March 21, reports that the U.S. will salvage what it can of the F.B.111 bomber program initiated by Mr. McNamara. Sixty planes which Mr. Laird, the present Secretary of Defence, said would not meet the requirements of a true intercontinental bomber, would cost $1517 million. Mr. McNamara had previously made remarkable claims for the plane, and had estimated the cost of 250 at $1697 million.

Commenting on the electronic warning system across the northern border of South Vietnam and parts of Laos initiated by Mr. McNamara at the cost of $1600 million, Mr. Laird said: "The original plan did not work out as expected." That is a polite understatement of the real fact that the electronic warning line has been a complete failure.
New intelligence, Mr. Laird said, not only shows no abandonment of the SS-9 but also no leveling off in Soviet ICBM production, as predicted in past years.

ON TARGET BULLETIN

SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION
MORALITY AND CONSTITUTIONALISM

In the last few subjects for discussion we have dealt with the question surrounding the purpose of constitutions. We have endeavoured to show that the constitutional limitations placed upon the power of the government to restrict it in doing as it likes once elected, is the result of hundreds of years of trial and error, of growth in understanding of what constitutes the correct relationship between man and his institutions. However there had to be a fundamental premise from which to work. That premise undoubtedly came from the belief that Man is divinely created, and that each of us is unique in the eyes of God.

It was held that the Christian belief in God as the creator, whose authority was everlasting and supreme, was the starting point on which all man made systems for regulating society should be based. It was further held that man is fundamentally corrupt, hence the importance attached in latter days as our society began to crumble to the statement of Lord Acton's, "Power corrupts: etc. But with the acceptance of the natural tendency of man to corruption and evil, it was necessary for Christian men to construct safeguards against the will to power, binding on all men. No man it was conceded was so moral he could be trusted with unlimited power over his fellow man.
Also all utopias were suspect and accepted as a Christian heresy. A utopia being a concept held by some men into which others were expected to fit whether they agreed or not.

As has been pointed out before, but it is worth repeating, any system of government, any constitution or any agreement between two or more parties relies in the final analysis on mutually accepted standards of morality. The reason why the unwritten constitution of Great Britain, and the written constitutions of America, Australia, Canada and others are under attack is because there are now widely diverging views of what is morally right in the community. When judges holding immensely powerful positions as do the judges on the Supreme Court of America, introduce a new moral concept when interpreting laws which for hundreds of years have been given one particular meaning, but now are at variance with their "new morality", then there is nothing which can stop constitutional breakdowns.
With the moral base destroyed the populace is at the mercy of any power hungry group, which can grab power.

As we extend an understanding of the proper function of Government and the role of constitutionalism, and relate these back to our Christian faith, we are building the basis from which there will be a genuine reaction against the corruption of power.