IN EAST END.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 236, 5 October 1936, Page 7

IN EAST END.

ANTI-SEMITISM. Veteran Labour Leader and Class Feeling. "BLACK SHIRTS" TACTICS. In a striking article in "The Spectator" recently, Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., the veteran Labour leader, deprecates Fascist tendencies and the embitterment of feeling that their methods have aroused. East London is one of tlie most interesting parts of our great metropolis, he states. It stretches right away from Aldgate to West Ham, and from the river to Stoke Ncwington. The population, especially in Stepney, Poplar and Bethnal Green, is a very mixed one. Indeed, gathered within these boroughs you will find men and women who have come to us from all parts of the world; people who follow all kinds of religions and whose personal and social habits differ as night differs from day. Jews form a very large part of this varied population. In Stepney they form* the majoiity. In other boroughs tliey are in the minority. But many or few, they and their gentile fellowcitizens live together in peace and harmony. We East Enders, 110 matter what our race or creed, are good citizens. Accident of Birth.

We seldom fall out with each other about religion or what we mean by God and religion. We judge each other for what we are and not by our creeds. Consequently, the coming of the "Black Shirts," with their terrible doctrine of hatred of Jews as Jews, has aroused great indignation among all kinds of people. We have had our share of class-hatred, although in its most distressful days our hatred was nearly always confined to the system which created and perpetuated class distinctions and poverty of mind and body. But this present campaign of religious and social intolerance and persecution is something we neither understand nor tolerate. We long ago gave up the doctrine of "original sin" as it used to l>o preached when I was very young. We know that Jews do not choose either their race or their parents; but most of all we know that as a people they are just like the rest of us—good and bad, with goodness predominating.

Because this is so, we view with shaine. and disgust the conduct of those who come from other parts of London and carry on propaganda of hatred, provocation and persecution against these our fellow citizens,'whose only crime is that they are the children of their parents. Most of them are as English as we are. There is a large proportion which is naturalised, but many Jews are just as mucTi English by birth as are Methodists, Anglicans or Roman Catholics. This wave of persecution would be stupid if it were not accompanied by what amounts to terrorism. Propagandists of Hate. Words do not always hurt unless followed by deeds, ancl the organised propagandists of hate not only attack individual shopkeepers and others by name, but they also do their utmost to provoke disorder by marching through market places where Jewish traders are carrying on business as costennongers, treading on the toes or heels of tlio men and women behind the stalls, using foul, obscene language about Jews, and by every means in their power striving to stir up a disturbance. . Sometimes they succeed, and usually when the police arrive, those who attack manage to get away. Only the other day a quite young,, man, stung beyond endurance, rushed at his tormentors with a knife and was prosecuted. The magistrate wisely discharged him, believing, I suppose) that he was not the guilty party.

Every body in East London is in j favour of free speech and freedom of meeting. Disturbances arise now because an entirely new form of meeting is held. A force of stewards is imported, made up of men and women trained and drilled as "chuckers out"; taught how to manhandle in a most brutal manner any person they think should be expelled. There is no chairman, and people are removed with the maximum of violence simply for interjecting a remark. Protests Provoked. These men imported from outside our district come to us and preach racial and religious hatred, and do so in language which provokes protest. Free speech does not mean the right to malign and scandalise your opponents. The police for years attended meetings addressed by myself and others, and note-takers took down, as far as their limited skill would allow, reports of our speeches, and prosecutions often followed. This practice continues, I am told, so far as Communist meetings are concerned, and prosecutions occasionally follow. But at the open-air meetings organised by the "Black Shirts" no Government reporters are regularly in attendance, and in view of the widespread opinion that speeches Jit these meetings are deliberately made for the express purpose of stirring up hatred and violence against individuals simply because of the accidcnt of birth and creed, is it not the duty of the authorities to treat those responsible for such speeches as they treat ordinary working people who may be Socialists, trade unionists, or Communists ? There is a widespread opinion that in this matter of the drilling and marching of organised bands of men and women whose avowed object is to upset, if necessary by force, the whole constitution, is illegal and should be stopped. People remember Lord Carson and his rebel army, and how it grew because of toleration and support in high places. Public opinion in East London is quite certain that ordinary folk would never be permitted to make the speeches made by Fascists without being prosecuted, and ask why this should be? We want equitable and just treatment for all.