COMMUNISTS AND FASCISTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 134, 18 March 1948, Page 5

COMMUNISTS AND FASCISTS

Removal from Key Positions LONDON, March 17. Heads of all Government Department® have been told to give immediate effect to the Government’s decision that Communists and Fascists are to he removed from positions in which security is involved, says the political correspondent of the “Daily Herald.” Some Labour members of the House of Commons were last night seeking signatures to a motion criticising the Government for introducing ideological tests for civil servants, the correspondent adds. They claim that such action is prejudicial to individual freedom on which British methods of Government are based. If, they say, such action i*3 to be taken, a special tribunal should be established to sift all the evidence in which allegations of Communist activities are based. The Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Hewlett Johnson, who is sometimes called “the Red Dean,” told the “Daily Mail” last night that pressure had been brought on him “from several directions” to eecure his resignation from the editorial board of the Communist newspaper “Daily Worker,’ but he had refused. He added: “I am not a member of any political party, but I support Russian economic Socialism, because I think it is better economic order and nearer Christianity than the capitalist economy of the West.”.