Evening Post SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1924. A LIBERAL RETREAT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1924, Page 6

Evening Post SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1924. A LIBERAL RETREAT

Referring last week to the apparent peril of : the British Government from the Liberals' censure motion, we suggested that Mr. Asquith's bark might again prove to be worse than his bite. A conjecture based on the uniformity>with which' the Liberals' hostility to the Government had .previously changed to complaisance as soon as there was" a chance of its becoming effective turns out to have been nearer the mark than the inferences drawn by the best authorities in London even after the House had met and Mr. Asquith had tabled his motion. But the circumstances of the Liberals' backdown are so different from anything they had done before that they were beyond the range of conjecture a week ago. On all the previous joccasionß Mr. Asquith had given the word for retreat or compromise, and had been obeyed' with alacrity. But now Mr. _ Asquith's call for a fight to a_ finish on the Government's Russian Treaty has been frustrated by the mutiny of the rank and file. They have' been so accustomed to strategic movements to the rear that their reluctance to move in the other direction is not to be wondered at, but the position in which it has placed Mr. Asquith entitles him to our sympathy. As Sir John Simon is associated with him in the rebuff, and no mention is made of Mr. Lloyd George, who is Sir John's rival for. the succession to the/Liberal leadership, it may well be that the " little Welshman's " influence has had something to do with the trouble. If he did not actually promote it, he appears at any rate to have "stood from under."

But of far greater moment than the opportunity which the timidity of the Liberals will give Mr. MacDonald of retrieving his Russian blunder is the attitude which they appear to bo adopting towards tho Conservatives' vote of censure. We are told that among the Liberal rank and file " the opinion was generally expressed that the country would not welcome an election, especially on a flimsy pretext like the Campbell case." Here, again, the decision of. their leaders to fight had to be reversed, and with a far more humiliating result. The Russian Treaty is likely to be drastically revised in the light of the objections raised by Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George, but no compromise appeal^ to be possible on the other issue," and the amendment which Sir John Simon has now unexpectedly tabled is admirably designed to provide a loophole for the Government and to enablo the Liberals to treat black as white without saying so. The Liberals profess to regard the Conservative attack upon the Government for its treatment of the Campbell prosecution aB a " flimsy pretext." To those who are not concerned to find reasons for differing from the Conservatives and avoiding the disaster threatened by an early election, the action of the Government in this matter has been one of its most ominous and most unpardonable blunders. And not even in their attitude to the Singapore scheme and to the six cruisers did the Liberals more glaringly. reveal their utter unfitness for office than by their treatment of this case.

On the 6th August Mr. J. R. Campbell, editor of the " "Workers' Weekly," which is the official organ of the Communist Party in Great Britain, appeared at the Bow Street Police Court to answer to a charge of having

feloniously, maliciously, and advisedly endeavoured to seduce divers persons unknown, then serving in His Majesty's Navy, Army, and Air Force, from their allegiance to His' Majesty—namely, such persons as should thereafter receive and read a certain printed publication called the "Workers' Weekly" of 25th July, containing an article entitled "Tho Army and Industrial Disputes—An Open Letter to the Fighting Forces." The case was described by counsel for the prosecution as " serious," and one might have supposed that 'even the most Liberal of the Liberal M.P.'s would have admitted the accuracy of the epithet as applied to an article which included the following passage :—

Soldiers, sailors, airmen, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, the Communist Party calls upon you to begin tils tank of nob euly organising passive resutw* __sa .w¥ & dr^itm. w

when an industrial dispute involves you, but to definitely and categorically let it be known that neither in the class war nor a military war will you turn- your guns on your fellow Wrkers, but instead will line up with your fellow workers in an attack upon the exploiters and capitalists and will use your arms on the side of your own class. Form committees in every barracks, aerodrome, and ship. Let this be the nucleus of an organisation that will prepare the whole of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen not merely N to refuse to go to war, or to refuse to shoot strikers during industrial conflicts, but will make it possible for the workers, peasants and soldiers, sailors and airmen to go for-, ward in a common attack upon the capitalists , and smash capitalism lor ever and institute the reign of the whole working class.

The, accused was remanded for a week, but when he appeared before the Magistrate again the leopard had changed its spots, the serious charge had lost its seriousness, no evidence was offered by the prosecution, and 'Campbell was unconditionally released.

The reason given for this procedure by counsel for the prosecution was of a most astonishing character. The proceedings had been instituted on the advice of the At-torney-General, but he was evidently not equal to his job, for it had been discovered since the defendant first appeared before the Court that there was really no harm in the article after all, or at any rate that no harm was intended.

It has been represented, said counsel; that the object or intention of the article in question was not to endeavour to seduce men in the fighting forces from -their duty and allegiance, or to induce them, to disobey lawful orders, but that it was comment upon armed military force being used by the State for the oppression of industrial disputes. •

"It has been represented" is a conveniently vague phrase. To whom were the representations made 1 and by whom ? These two points at least are certain—that they were not made by Campbell or his counsel, and that they were absolutely false. The appeal is not limited to industrial disputes, as a glance at our quotation from the article will show. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen are invited to change loyalty for Sovietism, to organise "passive resistance when war is declared," and " not merely to refuse to.go to war" but to. help the workers, apparently of all nations, m a common attack upon the capitalists.

It is fortunate for British justice that counsel for the Crown is not often called upon to father such a transparent f alsehoold as the representation of (this Bolshevist propaganda of treason and mutiny among the King's forces as mere comment-on the use of military force in industrial disputes. It is, as we have said, to the credit of Mr. Campbell that he was no party to this, mendacity. His defence as. was stated in a Communist manifesto after the withdrawal of the proceedings, was justification, and he had intended to call Mr Mac Donald, Mr.' Henderson, and others "who had been closely associated with the Second International " as witnesses for the defence. Not Communist solicitations but the severe pressure of certain Labour M.P.'s had induced the Government to abandon the prosecution. And the Liberal Tarty is afraid to say that the Government did wrong.