4 NOVEMBER 1922, Page 2

One example of the extraordinary ineptitude, and worse, with which

the Labour Party is led, is to be found hi Mr. Henderson's speech, never repudiated et anima, against all private enterprise. Still worse, however, is the amazing 'revelation of Mr. Clynes's blindness in the Manchester Guardian of Monday. The Manchester Guardian published a telegram from its correspondent in Moscow quoting from the Soviet organ Isvestia. Here is the translation of a telegram handed by Mr. J. R. Clynes to the Soviet representative in London, and by him forwarded in cipher to Moscow :— " Immediate ratification of the Urquhart Agreement would considerably ease the position of the Labour Party in the coming elections. Churchill and Curzon and their supporters at all election meetings will declare it impossible 'to deal with Bolsheviks as proved at the Hague, Genoa, and now by the non-ratification of a purely commercial agreement I am convinced all my colleagues would agree with this statement.—CLYNES."

The Manchester Guardian's correspondent says that Moscow is " dumbfounded at the spectacle of a Labour leader trying privately to help the capitalist with the object of strengthening Labour's case at the elections."