Red Activity In Cook Is.

SOME extraordinary statements were made to the “New Zealand Herald” lately by Mr. Barnett Otene (or ganiser of the NZ Maori Labour Party) when he arrived in Auckland from the Cook Islands after a three months’ visit.

Mr. Otene said that the Communists had had “opportunity to spill their deadly poison among the inhabitants of the Cook Islands” but he thought the political trouble was now all over. He said the Cook Islands Progressive Association was no longer “Communist inclined” and had expressed confidence in the New Zealand Government. The Association had been led astray by one or two men in New Zealand. Now it was not prepared to listen to anything “but the removal of the Workers’ Union from the Cook Islands.”

As the Workers’ Union is an orderly body and was established by non-Com munist interests to check the arrogance and activity of the CIPA, the statement of Mr. Otene is a little difficult to under stand.