REMARKABLE STORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3611, 29 May 1923, Page 23

REMARKABLE STORY.

LONDON, May 25. A remarkable story was told to a Westminster Gazette interviewer by Mr Oliver Baldwin, son of the Prime Minister. Oliver, who is 24 years of age, is a typical public school man. He served in the Irish Guards during the war, and since then has suffered in prison starvation and almost death in the cause of Socialism. “In September, 1920,” he said, ‘T went to Armenia as an army instructor during the Turkish Armenian war. We were beaten by the Turks in November, and the next month the Bolshevists swept down. They threw me into gaol with other Socialists, l being the only non-Armenian member of the Dashnakzut-un, one of the most powerful social revolutionary bodies. I was released on parole after six weeks in prison and went about seeing how Bolshevism worked. I left for Turkey in March, 1921, with a Ivemalist passport, which I now know was onb- a trap. I was arrested at Alexandropol and sent to prison in Kara for a month and then to another prison, where I had chains on my feet and was starved for five months. The Bolshevists wanted me back for execution, but the Turks kept me. I saw two Communists executed outside my window. Then an exchange was made, and I was released. I walked from Erzeroum to Trebizond. The British Labour Party lias broken my heart, because, while ostensibly belonging to the Second Internationale, it backs up the Moscow Third Internationale, which murders anyone who speaks in defence of public rights. I am going to Last Africa in September, where, with nature, the common enemy of man, 1 shall be united in building up instead of pulling down.”