CONSPIRACY CHARGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21450, 25 March 1933, Page 14

CONSPIRACY CHARGE

COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA CASE IN SOUTH WALES [from our own correspondent] LONDON. Feb. 1G Some remarkable evidence was given at a Newport Police Court when four men were charged with a conspiracy to seduce soldiers from their allegiance to the King. The men were Ernest C. Stead, Ernest Watley, Leonard Jeffries and. Samuel Paddock. Mr. G. C. Paling (for the Director of Public Prosecutions) said the charges related to pamphlets headed "The Soldiers' Voice, the Organ of Communist Soldiers," and certain, conversations which the men had with soldiers. Ho lead the following passage from a pamphlet: "This paper preaches the destruction of capitalism and the establishment of a Soviet Britain. There can bo no peatfe or prosperity until this is done, and it is up to every class conscious soldier to help speed the day, and get busy converting your mates." Mr. Paling said that Paddock suggested to William Henry Lloyd, a territorial in the Ist Battalion, Monmouthshire Regiment, that he should throw copies of the "Soldiers' Voice" over the wall of Newport Barracks.

Lloyd, giving evidence, said that uf> to September last he was a member of the Co/nmunist Party. He spoke of a meeting at his house between Watley and two soldiers from the South Wales Borderers, named Nash and Jones. Watley told the soldiers that when they got to China they would hear about the PanPacific Club, the members of which were highly educated. Lloyd alleged that Watley said they might be called upon to fight the Chineso natives, and ho thought Watley told them to fire over the heads of the natives. Watley, he said, asked the soldiers, "When you see your officers riding in cars with 'ladies don't you feel like shooting them ?" Lloyd stated that in a letter to him Jeffries said that the Post Office people were interfering more and more with their plans. The letter added, "I hope that if a Government tout reads this his eyes will fall out in the process." At a subsequent meeting, Lloyd continued, Watley said to the soldiers: "There are plenty of ways of getting out of the Army. Get rid of your khaki and put on a suit of 'civvies' and push off." He also said that if they got together and made general complaints they could get out of th<s Army." Private J. Thomas Nash, of the South Wales Borderers, stationed at Catterick, spoke of a conversation he had, in company with Private Jones of the same battalion, with Watley. Among other things, Watley said: "The Chinese are very much like ourselves. 'I hey work 14 hours a day on very little pay. When the officers talk to you, they talk to you like dogs, and you can say nothing back." On another occasion Watley said that the next war would very likely break out in the East, and very likely they would have to take part. When they were taking part he told them 10 think of their own fathers and mofJ>«'s.

Detective-Inspector Harris said that when he searched Stead's house he found among other documents a piece of paper on which wa3 written numerous regimental numbers and other particulars concerning soldiers in the South . Wales Borderers.

Another document contained the words: "Must carry on work among armed forces." Stead, ho said, admitted that he was organising secretary for the South Wales district of the Communist Party. When charged with conspiracy each replied, "not guilty."

All four men were committed for trial at the Old Bailey. Bail was refused, as was a poor persons' defence certificate.