Shaw, Self-Confessed Red, Gibes At Red Electioneering

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22891, 10 March 1949, Page 5

Shaw, Self-Confessed Red, Gibes At Red Electioneering

(11 a.m.) LONDON, Mar. 10. Mr. George Bernard Shaw has written to Mr. J. Mahon, the Communist candidate for St. Pancras byelection, saying that although a Communist himself, he cannot intervene on his behalf.

Mr. Shaw, in his letter, said: “I am a Communist and. always c?ll myself so, and when I do 1 know what I am talking about, which is more than can be said for some of our friends.

.“Then why, you will ask, am 1 not in the field canvassing and speaking for you? Well, in my ninety-third year, I am past such activities, but there is more in it than that.

“The Communist Party knows no more about electioneering than a pig about a holiday.. It has allowed the Tory Party to force on you as an election issue the alternatives of private versus public enterprise, instead of rubbing in the hard fact that in Russia private enterprise flourishes more than ever, while in England our Communistic factory Acts were followed by unprecedented extensions of private enterprise. “It has committed you to oppose the Marshall Plan which, for the moment, is absolutely necessary and makes a vote for you a vote against Sir. Stafford Cripps. “In the face of such political ineptitude, how can I .take pride in the election? You had better run as an Independent, a position much stronger today than it was at the last election, when it mean simply losing one’s deposit.”