SOVIET METHODS

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 142, 19 June 1922, Page 7

SOVIET METHODS

HOSTILE TO LIBERTY;

BRITISH LABOUR'S IDEAL

".WORKERS NEVER MORE

DIVIDED.'i

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPIRIOH?.)

(ACSTRALIAN ■ NBW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

(Received June 19, 11.30 a.m.)

LONDON, 18th June.

Delegates representing the organisations attached to the Second International met in conference in London. They included Messrs. J. H. Thomas, Ramsay, Mac Donald, Thorne, Jowett, and Gosling; and delegates from Belgium, Denmark, France, Sweden, Holland, and Germany. Mr. Henderson, presiding, said the unity of tho industrial forces of the workers was threatened by the Red Trades Union International. The difference between British labour and Russian communism was the difference between democracy and dictatorship. The communists despised free speech, free press, and free election, and British labour would always resist such an attack upon popular liberty. British labour was not optimistic about The Hague Conference, especially as the political commission of the Conference expected to establish European peace on a firm basis without change of the existing treaties. The greatest need at the present time, said Mr. Henderson, was unity amongst the working classes, yet never were the workers more divided. With the present divisions they would never be important as an international force.

Mr. Mac Donald denounced the methods of the Soviet Government. Not satisfied with denying freedom .of speech and thought, he said, the Soviet was conducting the trial of their opponents in a manner that was arousing the indignation of all who believed in social and political freedom. A resolution was carried protesting against the methods of the Russian Soviet.