Destroying Our

Red Fascists Are Destroying Our Export Trade

FOR nine months the Communist Party of Australia, by dictating the policy of certain unions, has succeeded in holding up the despatch of urgently needed Australian exports to the Nether lands Indies.

They have done this by the simple method of having several Dutch ships in our ports declared “black.”

In the past these Dutch ships carried a great deal of the Australian cargoes to China and Malaya, so it will readily be seen, especially in the present world-wide shipping shortage, that this action by the “Red Fascists” has seriously jeopardised our trade with those coun tries as well as destroying it completely as far as the Netherlands Indies is con cerned.

Export trade is absolutely vital to Aus tralia’s future prosperity. Full employ ment in the future depends upon the expansion of primary and secondary in dustry.

In the period between the two wars, the bulk of Australia’s exportable pro ducts was disnosed of in Great Britain and in the continent of Europe.

To-day the position is completely altered. The war-torn countries of the old world will be in no position to resume trading at pre-war levels for some con siderable time to come.

At the same time the war has stimu lated our secondary industries, and many articles we previously imported are now manufactured here. The mass produc tion methods necessary to keep unit costs down mean that in a large variety of our manufactured goods there will be big ex portable surpluses beyond what the Australian market can absorb. Unless such surplus goods can be sold in over sea markets, factories will be compelled to restrict production and dismiss workers.

It is tragic, therefore, that at this time valuable markets are being lost to us.

Foreign countries are securing a foot ing and the workers of other countries are eettin" the jobs Australians could have had but for the machinations of a handful of agitators. And these same agitators, mind you, are not inspired by a desire for the welfare of Australian workers. They are blind supporters of the Communist plan for world revolution and the destruction of all democratic governments.

The Federal Government, the A.C.T.U. and the Trades and Labour Council agreed months ago that the Dutch ships should sail but the Communist bosses said “No.”

Are Labour’s political leaders so terri fied of these Communists that they dare not challenge them?

Is the Red grip on the trade unions so strong that Labour’s industrial leaders must stand by. helpless and impotent?

Contributed by Ceigoa Pty., Ltd. (Consolidated Export and Import Group of Australia) 54 Oxford Street, Sydney.*•