COMMUNISTS GAOLED

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 120, 24 May 1933, Page 9

COMMUNISTS GAOLED

TRAINED ]N MOSCOW.

(From "Th« Post's" Representative.) LONDON, March 21. Four Welsh Communists, all miners, who Mr. Justice Humphreys said were more correctly described as .an organised gang of criminals, were sentenced at the Old Bailey for conspiring to seduce soldiers from taoir duty and allegianco to his Majesty. Mr. Justice Humphreys passed the following sentences:— .Ernest Charles Stead (36), twenty-one months' hard labour; Leonard JeffeHes (34), three years' penal servitude; Samuel Paddock (40), fifteen months' hard labour; Ernest Whatley (43), .twelve, monthsj hard labour. The case for., the Crown was that an endeavour was made to get copies of a paper called "The Soldiers' Voice, Organ of the Communist Soldiers," distributed among soldiers at Newport Barracks by a Territorial named Lloyd, who was a member of the Communist | Party. Tho defendants were found guilty on all counts. i Detective 'Inspector- Harris, of Newport, said, that Stead began life as a miner and. later attended a Labour College in London, for threo years. In 1920 ho returned to Glamorganshire, where ho became an active Communist. From 1927 to 1930 ho attended what was known as a Lenin course at a Communist college in Moscow. Tho inspector said ho understood ' that the students there received instruction in theoretical and practical revolutionary knowledge. In 1931' ho was again in Russia as a delegate to a conference of Friends of the Soviet Union. Ho was known to the police in South Wales as a man who by underground methods attempted to create strife aud disorder. His one aim was revolution. As chief of the Communist Party, in South Wales Stead issued instructions to such men as his fellow prisoners to. undertake work which 'might expose them, to conflict with tho police, but he remained in his office. Thero was no question but that ho was well paid for his work. Jefferics began life as a coal miner and later obtained employment as. a clerk. He first came to tho -notice- of the police as a Communist in 1923. He took an active-part in Cardiff in the Seamen's Minority • Movement. His speeches were -of a nature- likely to cause disorder. He was connected.-with tho Labour League of- Ex«Servieemen, the members of which wcro equipped with, military uniforms, and no doubt their aim was revolution. Jefferies went to Russia, and on his return in 1931 he was appointed acting district organiser in South Wales in tho absence in Russia of Stead. In that year he was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment ■ for riot, unlawful assembly, and assaulting tho police. "GANO'OF CRIMINALS.1' 1 Addressing Jefferics the Judge said> "I have heard enough of you to realisethat you arc a clever and educated person. I have no doubt you arc rightly described as. a dangerous agitator. Less than two years ago you were found guilty of riot and assaulting the police, and I am. told you ivno a leader in that riot. You are precisely,the sort of person who is a danger-to society, because you have a glib tongue, which you use for the purpose of misleading people, and misleading them, into committing crime. You must go to penal servitude for three years." Mr. Justice Humphreys said that the jury had convicted the defendants of offences that must bo regarded by everybody, as. of tho greatest possible seriousness. They had had at the bands of the jury a perfectly fair and impartial \, trial.'. Addressing Stead, the Judge-said: "I am satisfied that you are a dangerous revolutionary. You may'call yourselves, politicians, but I believe you are more correctly described as an organised gang of criminals. The records of three- of you show that to bo so." On being sentenced, Jefferies shouted: "Down with-Hitler justice." Tho Judge described Paddock and Whatley as illiterate persons and not quite so bad as tho others. ... ,\