The explanation -of this strange incident issued by the organization
of the Communists is that the -Government " surrendered " alder severe pressure from several well-known' 'Labour Members of 'Parliament. It is also -suggested that Cabinet Ministers were afraid of being brought into court as witnesses and having some of their own pronouncements during the War quoted against them. We can hardly believe that Cabinet fdinisters are much afraid of that sort of thing-, as -the worst as well as the best that can be said about them is well known already. 'If Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's notorious revolutionary speech of 1917, urging-workers and soldiers to form soviets, is read carefully, it will be seen that he introduced careful qualifications and that he did not actually preach revolutionary violence. It is clear, -however, that the whole matter of the prose- cution was bungled. It is an obvious humiliation for the Public Prosecutor to bring a case into court and- then to ask for the acquittal of the defendant for reasons which the defendant himself openly derides,! If there was any possibility that the prosecution would be with- drawn, it should never have been undertaken.
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