AT MOSCOW’S BEHEST.

Evening Star, Issue 21285, 14 December 1932, Page 11

AT MOSCOW’S BEHEST.

' TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, —Under the above heading a man by the name of Elias, a hunger march leader in London, was reported to have been found guilty by a jury of inciting the mass of unemployed to struggle against the capitalist State. In sentencing Elias to two years’ imprisonment Mr Justice Charles said: “ Britain’s policy was to allow people to express any views and advocate any revolution they wished, provided they refrained from inciting others to disorder and violence.” He added that “Not one in a thousand is led astray by the activities which Elias prosecuted at the behest of Moscow,” and finished up by saying: “The maximum sentence was far too short.” This statement of Mr Justice Charles only confirms a statement 1 made in a letter to your columns the other day, that it is the economic conditions prevailing in any country at a given time that drive people to revolt, not outside agitation from Moscow. If the percentage is less than one in a thousand, why should the maximum sentence be given? No

wonder a woman shouted: “How dare he (the judge) arrogate the right to speak for the workers? To hell with Capitalist justice.” I venture to prophesy that it is ' comments like those made by Mr Justice Charles in relation to this case that will be the means of making more rebels against the capitalist State and capitalism’s mess of things generally than anything such as this hunger march leader could say or incite the unemployed to do. What causes hunger marches, anyhow? Let those who are entrusted with the guiding of a nation’s destiny find the answer. The solution of that will prevent revolutions. The failure will most certainly cause some convulsions that even Mr Justice Charles may not desire. The first one may be that he will lose his job and perhaps have to take back some of the statements he so glibly used when lecturing those who, through not fault of their own, are among the unemployed to-day. One thing is most assuredly certain—that if Russia can make a success of her planned economy and prevent in the very near future the contradictions and anomalies that the workers are suffering from in Capitalist countries, then no power 1 know of will stop others from adopting a similar economic policy; and this view is widely held by others than those unemployed.—l am, etc., P. Neilson. December 13.