MR MIKOLAJCZYK

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25329, 31 October 1947, Page 7

MR MIKOLAJCZYK

POLISH PARLIAMENT ORDERS INQUIRY (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, October 30. The Warsaw radio says that the Polish Parliament has appointed a parliamentary committee to inquire into the activities of Mr Mikolajczyk, the Polish Peasant Party leader, and others who disappeared last week. The Prime Minister (Mr Josef Cyrankiewicz) said that their flight would clear the atmosphere. “Public life will only benefit from it. especially when it gets rid of all the Mikolajezyks,” he said. The London correspondent of the New Zealand press Association quotes the diplomatic correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian’’ to say: “The escape of Mr Mikolajczyk appears to have been welcomed by almost all sections of Polish public opinion. His own supporters at first feared he had been arrested and would be brought to trial to suffer the same fate as Mr Petkov, but this fear has now given way to the conviction that he has escaped from Poland. Even the Communists outwardly express pleasure. “On the contrary, the Russian press vitriolically attacks the former Peasant Party leader. ‘Mr Mikolajczyk was careful to take himself off in time,’ said the Moscow radio in its latest broadcast. ‘His hands are stained with the blood of many a true Polish democrat. It has been proved to the hilt that he aided underground bandits vzho aimed at overthrowing democratic order in Poland and paving the way to foreign intervention. Another cowardly fugitive has joined the ranks of exposed spies and wreckers who have taken refuge from the resentment of their nations under the wing of foreign reactionaries.’ ”