COMMUNIST PAPER SUED FOR LIBEL

Southland Times, Issue 24114, 1 May 1940, Page 7

COMMUNIST PAPER SUED FOR LIBEL

BRITISH LABOUR LEADERS’ ACTION LONDON, April 29. A big London libel action arising from the war opened in the Law Courts, when Sir Walter Citrine and six members of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress sued E. R. Pountney, proprietor of The Daily Worker for damages. Sir William Jowett, for the plaintiffs, said the libel referred to the plaintiff’s visit to France in December to form the Anglo-French Trade Union Council. The Daily Worker was the official organ of the British Communist Party, which was affiliated with the Communist International in Moscow. Sir William Jowett read articles from The Daily Worker containing these passages: “The real purport of the Paris meeting is to bring 1,000,000 trade unionists behind the war machine of British and French Imperialism” and “martial law in factories, a 60-hour week, compulsory deductions from wages and the abolition of shop stewards are some of the benefits the Brit-ish-French unity may bring from across the Channel.” Sir Walter Citrine in evidence said the statements in The Daily Worker were misleading and untrue. The Labour movement had repeatedly declared that the money for the publication of The Daily Worker came from Moscow.