Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1919. FORCES OF DISORDER

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 33, 8 August 1919, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1919. FORCES OF DISORDER

"Bolshevism" is so vague a word, so convenient a term of abuse, and has been so freely applied to almost' every form of unrest and discontent with which the war has affected men of every nation and creed, from Petrograd to Vancouver and from China to Peru, that a charge of Bolshevist tendencies or. even of a Bolshevist conspiracy always needs to be accepted with caution. Just as the dangerous upheavals on the Clyde and the Tyne in the early months of 1915 were widely attributed to German intrigues and German gold, so now the hand of the Bolshevist is detected everywhere. Yet the spread of v what we loosely call Bolshevism must in the main be due rather to an epidemic infection unconsciously spread like that of influenza, than to a direct propaganda from headquarters. In spite of some specific allegations to the contrary, this had seemed to be the more probable explanation of the Bolshevism with which the extremists in the British Labour movement.have been repeatedly charged. But if-the detailed information which reaches us from London to-day is correct, the Bolshevism with: which these extremists are themselves infected and are assiduously, endeavouring to infect others is not to he explained as merely arising from the same general causes which have given the revolutionaries of Russia and Hungary their opportunity, and deriving at the moat some help from their example. • •■ •

On the authority of The Times we are informed to-day that "the Govern ment is convinced that the strikes are part of a definite conspiracy financed from abroad, aiming at a revolution," and that " direct action on the largest scale" was to have followed upon the expected success of these preliminaries. The Daily Mail is more specific. It declares that the conspiracy is of Bolshevist origin and that "correspondence which has been seized implicates Trotsky, Tchechejin, Bela Kun, and responsible English Labourites who are not indicated." People of the British Empire, will naturally be more interested in the names of English Labourites which are not disclosed'than in those of their .distinguished foreign coadjutors who are, unfortunately, beyond the reach of the King's writ. Those who, with Mr. TJoyd George, regard The Times as nothing but "a threepenny edition of the Daily Mail" are, of. course, entitled to say that the two authorities we have quoted speak with but one voice. They may also point out that statements almost equally specific regarding the Government's disoovery of the relations between Sinn Fein and the German Secret Service were never justified. In the present case we have, however, the corroboration of a third authority which makes a still more 'definite statement:

Scotland Yard (says the Cable Association's correspondent) has definite information that Bela. Kun sent £6000 to England, via Stockholm, by a Swede who confessed that he handeS it to1 a Labour leader with extreme views.

If we may regard this information as authentic, the British allies of Bela Kun are to) be congratulated upon their audacity and the Government 'and the nation upon its timely discovery. The police strike was, on the whole, the most audacious of the revolutionary enterprises, in Britain which have had any appreciable measure of success. In Russia the Bolshevists struck first at the Army and the Navy, and the fact that the immediate effect was the abject and ignominious surrender of their own country to its hereditary enemy was not regarded as a serious objection. In the United Kingdom such an enterprise was Beyond hope, but by organising a police strike the British Bolshevists did the best that their circumstances allowed. They aimed a blow at one. of the bulwarks of law and order in a spirit fully worthy of their Russian model. The discovery that Bela Kun had forwarded 56000. to help, his British accomplices in their laudable enterprise has certainly come at a.most opportune moment. It has Been announced simultaneously with the fact that he had still five million crowns left in his luggage at the time of his arrest, and, " lest we forget," the announcement has also, been simultaneous with the reports of the nation's commemoration of Remembrance Day. If the information which the Government has secured has not been exaggerated, the exposure will surely so strengthen its hands as to ensure a decisive victory over the forces of disorder. ,