Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1933. MAY DAY ORATORY .

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 14, 9 May 1933, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1933. MAY DAY ORATORY .

The May Day Labour celebration in Hyde Park on Sunday was distinguished by none of the excitement which was provoked by the great demonstration of ''hunger marchers" in the same place six months ago. The crowd which was , brought by seven converging processions to the park was large but orderly." Though the processionists'included Fascists and Hitlerites, and also "a contingent of Oxford undergraduates with a banner emblazoned 'We Won't Fight'—presumably a white flag with dark blue lettering—they did not fall out by the: way. Nor when the thirty speakers got to work and with the.aid of amplifiers were able to carry their criticism of Herr Hitler and Sir Oswald Mosley far and wide did the admjrers of either Nazi or Fascist violence sound a discordant note. On this occasion they were as proud not to fight as the Whiteflaggers themselves. The Fascist lion and the pet lamb frdm Oxford took it lying down together, which was a very happy arrangement from the standpoints both of the lamb and of the organising committee. But the only speaker mentioned in our cabled report ignored with base ingratitude this unusual feature o^a Labour gathering. Mr. George Lanebury, Leader of the Opposition, despite a- percentage of Fascist • and ' Hitlerite insignia in the procession, said that the. celebration challenged Hitlerism, Fascism, and Nationalism, and all .their implications as gospels of decadence and despair. Labour represented international solidarity, 'v - .'• Yet still-the Fascist lion took it lying down. ' But the other..point mentioned in the report of Mr- Lansbury's speech is of greater interest., His attack upon, the police'administration presented , the usual contrast between the benevolence of his character and the fierceness of his invective, but there was an element of novelty in the. fact that it was to the fatherly care of the administration he was attacking that he owed both the'safe conduct of the seven processions to their meeting place and the protection of himself and the other speakers from- interruption. The elaborate precautions with which the Government is accustomed to ensure a fair hearing even for attacks upon itself are too familiar to excite much attention in Britain, but what is there accepted as a matter of course is really a triumph in toleration and judicial detachment to which few other countries could supply a parallel:- If Mr. Lansbury had attempted to deal- with the Nazi Government of Germany' or the Fascist Government of Italy in the same fashion, his very first point would have landed him in gaol, and there he would have stayed with no Habeas Corpus Act and no Court to release him till the Government considered his offence to be sufficiently purged. To this statement he would of course reply that it only confirmed his contention that such Governments as these represent the* "gospels of decadence, and despair."' ■ ' ■ Let us^ therefore refer Mr. Lansbury to another Government which, if notcompletely after his own heart, is much more nearly so than those of Germany and Italy. A few weeks ago he. .spoke of Russia's "working-class Soviet Government," and expressed, the confident hope that it would show itself "superior to the British capitalist Government." The two Governments had been in conflict, and of course, in Mr. Lansbury's judgment the capitalist Government had been in the wrong. Russia, ho said, as reported on April 22, has not been treated as a sovereign State, but hag been bullied into subjection. The crime of which Britain's capitalist Government had been guilty was that it had interfered on behalf of six British\ subjects whose guilt Mr. Lansbury did not venture to affirm, and the Soviet Government' cannot possibly have believed, but whom it would probably have murdered, and perhaps without a trial,' if there had been no interference. The result, of Britain's protest was that all of the six were given a "mock trial at which their innocence was proved,' that none of them was murdered, and that four of them, except for the degradation and the misery of their imprisonment and their cruel' treatment in gaol escaped scot-free. Instead of being grateful to the British Government which had rendered this signal service to humanity, the humanitarian Mr. Lansbury lamented that Russia had been "bullied into subjection," and expressed the hope that her Government- would nevertheless prove its superiority to the' capitalist Government-of Britain by releasing the -two innocent victims which it still kept in prison. Mr. Lansbury has now an excellent chance to prove the sincerity of his faith in the justice and humanity of "the working-class Soviet Government" by going to Moscow and attacking the Ogpu with even a very mild dose of the severity with which he attacked the British Commissioner of Police tat the Hsdo Park meeting M? %

Lansbury in the hands of the Ogpu would provide material for a study in contrasts which would make the meeting of Mr. Mac Donald and Signor Mussolini appear commonplace in comparison. The exact nature of Lord Trenchard's offence is not explained in Mr. Lansbury's fierce but vague denunciation. Lord Trcnchard, he says, aimed at transforming the police into an upper class force because they could not trust a working class forco to crush a Socialist Government. Lord Trenchard 's report disgraced himself and his administration. Lord Trenchard has certainly disgraced himself if he has proposed to convert the police force into a branch or annex of. the aristocracy in order "to crush a Socialist Government," but in the absence of particulars it is safer to assume that his, critic is talking nonsense than that he himself has been so foolish. The important changes in the character and organisation of the Metropolitan Police which were reported on Wednesday to be . foreshadowed in - the Commissioner's annual report were entirely to his credit. The Commissioner emphasises that the entrance examination is/ of the same rudimentary character as a century ago, and he urges that efforts should be made to raise the level. "The old'idea that too much mental development w;is likely to make a policeman diseontenied with his job," ho says, "is obsolete. The Best brains are essential for .tho higher posts. The criminal is becoming more skilful, mobile, and scientific.'5 Does Mr. Lansbury think chat the improving efficiency of the criminal should not be matched by a corresponding advance in the efficiency of the police? Is he afraid that the force may become so intelligent and so well educated that, instead of protecting a Socialist Leader of Opposition in Hyde Park, it would set out "to crush »a Socialist Government"? His Ogpu friends know better than that, for they regard brains and education as essential qualifications of their force. It may be safely .assumed that Lord Trenchard has • been guilty of some offence which no Soviet Commissar has ever committed, but what it may be is not disclosed.