SUCCESSFUL SUIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 107, 7 May 1940, Page 7

SUCCESSFUL SUIT.

COMMUNISTS TO PAY.

Libel Action By Trade Union

Leaders In Britain.

£1400 DAMAGES AWARDED.

United Press Association.—Copyright.

(Received 11 a.m.) LOXDOX, May 6. In the "Daily Worker" libel case Sir Walter Citrine was awarded £300 damages, and four others £200, and two others £150. Mr. Justice Stable, in giving judgment, said that the libels were the culmination of long and persistent attempts to oust plaintiffs from their positions. There was not a scintilla of evidence to support the abominable charge that Sir Walter or any member of the Labour delejration went to Paris and were engaged in anything dishonest, he said, He did not think that he was entitled to infer that Moscow paid for the attack against plaintiffs. "That is a matter remaining in the decent obscurity in which defendant apparently prefers to leave it." The judge added that libel was protracted and unscrupulous and was inspired from abroad. Defendant had not the courage to go into the witness box. He awarded costs against the defendant.

The case is that in which Sir Walter Citrine and six members of the General Council of the Trade Union Congress sued Mr. E. R. Pountney, proprietor of the "Daily Worker," official organ of the British Communist party, for damages. The libel referred to plaintiffs' visit to France in December to initiate the Franco-British Trade Union Council.