POLICE COUP.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 16 October 1925, Page 5

POLICE COUP.

ARREST OF COMMUNISTS; SENSATION IN LONDON. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT. LONDON, Oct. 14. A sensation was caused in London by the arrest of the Communist leaders. Campbell’s earlier arrest in August last year was the cause of the Labour Party’s downfall and provided the leading issue in the last- election. Porritt was the victim of the recent kidnapping episode. Air Travers Humphreys called at How Street in the afternoon and handed warrants to the special branch of the Criminal Investigation Department. The department immediately gave orders for simultaneous raids by detectives, .who in parties in motorcars descended on the Communist offices and the private houses of the leaders. The surprise was complete. _ The Communists had not the slightest warning. The police, using synchronised watches, timed their arrival exactly, so that the Communists had no opportunity to communicate from one office to another or to private offices by telephone. None of the arrested men offered opposition. They listened to • the warrants and were then motored to Bow Street, charged, and detained in custody. . ' . , , i Inkpen and Cant were arrested at the Communist headquarters in King Street, Covent Garden; Porritt and Rust at the office in Great Ormond Street, and Campbell and Winteringham at Johnson’s Court, .Fleet Street-. The police are still in possession of various offices. In each case the Communists were sent to Bow Street before a search of. the rooms began. Then motor lorries arrived to transfer documents, pamphlets, and account hooks to the police station. The raid was carried out so quietly that no public- attention "vv as attracted Even Fleet Street journalists did iiot guess the happenings until ten o’clock. During the hours the police were examining the bundles of pamphlets, some of which were printed in brilliant red an elderly attendant sat in an arm-chair before the office fire reading a book, not paying the least attention to the * detectives. The police raid was the second hostile visit or raid on Communist offices in Covent Garden. Earlier in the day a- party of national Fascisti “blackshirts”' raided the office. and carried off a projecting sign, singing God Save the King” and “Rule Britannia. Detectives previously raided the offices of the national movement in Great Ormond Street in August, seizing a quantity of printed matter. Inkpen served a sentence of six months’ hard labour in 1922 for publishing a so-called tlie sis of tlio Oommunist International. It is understood that the police are looking for two other members of the Communist Party, who are believed to be in the provinces. , . , ~ Colonel Jackson, sneaking at Gravesend on Wednesday evening, claimed that the Government had been given a mandate to see that tlie- attempts of the ill-conditioned, evil-minded) mmcritv, who were attempting to--. undermine and destroy the constitution, should lie drastically dealt with. “As chairman of the party organisation,” he declared, “I say that this matter cannot be played with. . the partv will not tolerate it. It is against the interests of the country that this sowing of sedition, this persuading men to stop work, should be allowed to go on. Our party says that if it is there, throttle it, kill it. Do not hesitate to clear out these aliens who, have come for the purpose of trying to make mischief. The police took possession of the whole current edition of the A\ orkers Weekly, which had just been printed. Murphy, a member of the Communist executive, said, he had been expecting something of the sort. The paity would rally round the leaders. The executive of the London Labour Party announces that it has decided to aoplv the decision of the Liverpool conference regarding the exclusion of C °Tbe ily Herald (the Labour paper) states that warrants are also out tor the arrest of W. Gallacher organiser and T. Bell, political secretary. It is understood that Communist headquarters in the provinces were also searched fast- night.