On 19th February the New Zealand Communist Party announced the expulsion of 2 members in Christchurch, New Zoaland's third biggest city. They are John Sturt and Matthow Lygate, both militant of long standing and oxponents of a pro-Chincse orientation for the Party. They wore accusod of “persistent factionalism" and “making threats against the Party that they would tako action...detrimontal to the good name of the Party" (quotes from Peoples! World).
Sturt and Lygato claim that they were in fact for opposing Party tactics which were in contradiction to the expressed principles of both the New Zealand and Chinese C.P.s, and that the action taken against them was in open disregard of the Party's constitution. They accused the Canterbury District leadership of the Party of making concessions to a centrist wing of the Labour Party and the trade union bureeucracy. One-third of the Canterbury membership of the C.P. have resigned in sympathy with Sturt and Lygate, including all but one of tho Lyttelton branch, which consists mainly of dockorse Tho Y.C.L. is officially supporting the expelled mombors.
This new tendency took a leading part in the demonstration against the South African cricket toam on March 3rd. Its younger members have worked closely with loft-wing Labour militants in the University of Canterbury New Left Club, and the Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.