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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 28, No. 8. 1965.

Hitler Tactics?

Hitler Tactics?

Sirs,—It is interesting, to say the least, to see what the House of Representatives, that buzzing bunch of bees of Beehive (oops, sorry—Capitol) fame think of the political persuasions of us students! Once the McCarthyites of our government get into stride, even the left wing Opposition is afraid to dissent, for fear of being lumped in with the "Other communists" tag.

But behind this willingness to label freedom-loving free thinkers "Communist" I can perceive the first stirrings of a quasi-Fascist hysteria, which the government is trying to spread in a so far vain attempt to sway the collective mind of the ignorant public to their side in the Vietnam issue.

How long before Cabinet appears in black uniforms and jackboots? How long before Holyoake revives the pre-war German craze of bookburning with the Un-New Zealand Activities and Publications Tribunal as his willing tool? How long before a "Communist attempt to burn down Parliament, our Reichstag?

I fear this government is veering towards Hitlerian tactics when it indiscriminately labels intellectuals, demonstrators, leftists and rightists who oppose its foreign policy, plus of course the pacifists and the few Communists as being all "Communists." After all, we know only too well that the only way to stop the Communists is to form a powerful Right wing (or Fascist) government. Look at South Africa, Rhodesia, Spain, Portugal, Nazi Germany!

Let us have no more of this hysterical name-calling, Mr. Holyoake and Mr. Algiel There are always those who believe in the old maxim "you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb."

R. G. Pasley.