• * * * We need not go at any
length into the debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday about the Communist trial. Our first leading article deals with it- 'and our Parliamentary- correspondent has also described it. The Labour Party was consciously not in a position to attack the Government for suppressing. freedom of speech— since the Labour Party when in power had itself tried to prosecute the Communists. Yet oddly enough the motion dealt expressly with freedom of speech. The Labour speakers were much more concerned to trounce the Home Secretary for his indiscretions- in his recent • and earlier speeches. There was no bitterness such as might hate been expected on such an occasion, because nobody really felt that the great principle of freedom of speeeh was iu danger. We cannot disagree with Mr. Ramsay :MacDon- ald's definition of any man's right to preach great funda- mental changes in society, such as the destruction of capitalism. He truly said that anyone has a, :perfect right to declare that a revolution may be a necessary incident in bringing about great changes. But he did not dispose of the fact and, of course, could:not evea attempt to do so, that men who circulate pamphlets among, the forces exhorting them to mutiny must be prosecuted.
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