NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE Government's statement on the seizure of various London buildings by squatters at the instigation of the Communist Party is not a syllable too strong. Nothing but 4` a very serious view " of such proceedings is possible. As to their legality nothing need be said here ; that question will be decided in the courts next week ; but no one is likely to question the propriety of the Downing Street reference to " this unlawful movement." The most serious aspect of the whole business, of course, is the fact that it has been deliberately and elaborately organised by a party whose main purpose it is in many countries of the world to upset ordered government. Here, hitherto, the Communists have pursued political ends in the main by political means, though public memories are not too short to recall the obstructive attitude pursued during the war so long as it was merely Britain's war, and the immediate abandonment of that attitude when it became Russia's war. Now direct action is invoked, at a time when direct action in parts of the trade union world make recourse to such a weapon seem unusually hopeful, and in a cause which may momentarily evoke sympathy froin parts of the public. Any such sympathy is totally misplaced. The housing situation is deplorable ; the Government have secured the production of fewer houses than might have been hoped ; local authorities have been slow in putting in order many houses which they requisitioned long since. But the work is in hand ; it is proceeding on an ordered basis ; and the plans can only be thrown into confusion by the lawless Communist performances. Unless they are immediately checked the Communists will have succeeded in two important aims, in winnnig some cheap and short-lived popularity with the families they have purported to help (and whose last case will be worst than the first) and in substituting anarchy on a small scale for planned administra- tion. Law, it cannot be too strongly emphasised, exists for the normal citizen's protection, not for his restraint, and no one with the smallest realisation of what action of this kind means will fail to give the Government unstinted snpport in its defence of law.
