FREE SPEECH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 286, 3 December 1925, Page 6

FREE SPEECH.

A' fuller report of the debate in the House of Commons, on the prosecution of the Communists may throw a more favourable light on the Labour party's case, but the summary in our cable news indicates that it was painfully weak. Indeed, Mr. Mac Donald conceded at least part of the Government's case when he said that "a man had a right to express his belief that revolution was inevitable for the

transformation of society, but if' he sought to create a revolution let him take the consequences." Seeking to create a revolution was «in essence the charge against these Communists. They were "prosecuted not for expressing opinions but for advocating mutiny and violence, or as the Home Secretary puts it, not "for advocating an alteration in the Constitution, but for attempting to bring about an alteration 'by violence and unconstitutional means." It is argued by some Englishmen who have not the slightest sympathy with Communism that the wisest plan is to leave the Communists alone; that newspaper publicity and prosecutions give them an advertisement that hel/ps their cause. Mr. Mac Donald apparently takes this view. Communism, he says, instead of being "shamed," has been scattered broadcast. However, there are limits to a Government's forbearance. If these men had done nothing more than mouth fire and slaughter in Hyde Park, where according to a custom that puzzles visitors extremists are sure of police protection,- it might have been safe to leave them alone, but they did much more. They actively plotted to destroy the discipline of the Crown's forces and to bring about a revolution by force, and they were in league with the Kussian organisation that seeks to overthrow civilisation evervwlicre.