2 MARCH 1934, Page 19

THE UNEMPLOYED HUNGER MARCH

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, Mr. Bradshaw's point is so blunt that it would be impossible to miss it. He apparently supports the Hunger March as an " immense living advertisement of unemploy- ment," and believes that " the sight of these ragged legions, workless and ill-fed " will impress the inhabitants of cathedral towns and the more prosperous parts of the country, who do not fully appreciate the nightmare of unemployment. Apart from the fact that the marchers, according- to Press reports and photographs, are a very well-fed, well-clothed and well- shod body of men and women, surely there is no one left in this:country today who does -not realize the tragedy of the unemployment which still oppresses so many of our people. Mr. Bradshaw insults their intelligence and their sensibility by suggesting that even the inhabitants of cathedral towns are not acutely alive to the sufferings of the workles.s.. They do not like, however, to see them exploited by a group of men who merely use them as a means of serving a larger purpose.

If Mr. Bradshaw would read the Communist Press, as I am compelled to do, he would see the real motives of the march exposed in all their nakedness. While there is ngreat display of indignation at the " slave Bill," as the Unemployment Bill is called, the peroration of the appeal to support the 'march calls on "every class-conscious worker to do all in his or her power to build and strengthen the Communist Party, the revo- lutionary fighting leadership of the working-class, as an indis- pensable necessity for carrying the whole struggle onward to complete and full proletarian Victory."

It will be seen, then, that the march is less a living advertise- ment of unemployment than an advertisement of the Communist Party. The Party cleverly uses the woes of the unemployed for its own ends, as it uses the " cuts " in naval pay, in teachers' salaries, the grievances of Trade Unionists, the desire for peace and disarmament, and other causes.

With that knowledge it is impossible to feel the same sym- pathy for the hunger marchers as we should feel for a voluntary and spontaneous demonstration by genuine unemployed men who had no other outlet for their grievances. Nor is our sym- pathy fanned . by the knowledge that half of the " coppers provided by -the poor and workless " do not go to provide more comfort for the marchers, but to maintain the organization which promoted the march. Whether a portion of it will be reserved for feeding the :Marchers in London or for returning them to their homes, as is now alleged, we shall wait and see.— Secretary.

Anti-Socialist and Anti-communist Union, 58-60 Victoria Street, London, S.W. 1.