We note with satisfaction that the Union Government of South
Africa have decided to remit the sentence of one month's imprisonment passed on Mr. F. P. Creswell, the leader of the Independent Labour Party. Mr. Creswell, who was charged with publishing a leaflet urging the workers to stand firm by the strike while abstaining from violence, maintained that be bad always spoken against violence, and that every man had a right to refuse to work, and he petitioned the Supreme Court to be released on the ground that the Magistrate who sentenced him bad wrongly claimed to administer martial law, and that the Court sat in judgment at a time when no state of war, riot, or disturbance existed on the Rand. A role had been granted by Judge Wessels, hot the Government resolved to remit the sentence on the ground, so it is alleged, that they were loth to deprive the Labour Party of one of its principal spokesmen in Parliament during the discussion of martial law and the recent industrial disturbances. Mr. Creswell's views on Labour questions are open to grave criticism, but we believe it to be the case that he has exerted a restraining influence on the extremists, and no one who is acquainted with his antecedents and the great sacrifices that he has made for his convictions can for a moment doubt his sincerity and disinterestednesa
Previous page
