REMARKABLE STORY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18791, 28 May 1923, Page 9

REMARKABLE STORY

TOW BY BRITISH PREMIER’S SON. SUFFERINGS IN CAUSE OF SOCIALISM. LONDON, Maj- 24. A remarkable story was told to a Westminster Gazette interviewer by Oliver Baldwin, son of the Premier. Oliver, aged twenty-four, is a typical public school man. He served in the Irish Guards during the war, and since then has suffered prison, starvation, and almost death in the cause of Socialism. “In September, 1920,” he said, “I went to Armenia as an army instructor during the Turkish Armenian campaign. We were beaten by the Turks in November. Next month the Bolsheviks swept down and threw me into gaol, with other Socialists. I, being the only non-Armenian member of the Dashnakzutunn, one of the most powerful social revolutionary bodies, 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 Kemalist passport, which 1 new know was only a trap. I was arrested at Alexandropol and sent to prison in Kara for a month, tn-n to another prison, where I had chains c-n my feet and was starved for five months. The Bolsheviks wanted me back for execution, but the Turks kept me. I saw two Communists executed outside my window. Then an exchange was made. I was released, and walked from Erzeoum to Trebizoud. The British Labour Party has broken my heart, because, while ostensibly belonging to the Second Internationale, it backs up the Moscow Third Internationale, which murders anyone speaking in defence of public rights. I am going to East Africa in September, where, with nature as the common enemy of man, I shall be united in building up instead of pulling down.”