AN ATTACK ON POLITICAL LIBERTY?
Sitt,—It is surely an interesting paradox that the self-styled "progressive" Labour Party is in some ways so reactionary. The purpose of the Ballot Act of 1872 was to enable the individual voter, if he so desired, to safe- guard the secret of his political allegiance and thus to protect himself from intimidation and victimisation. It is apparently the intention of the present Government to deprive all trade union members of the benefits secured to them by this Act. Once the Trades Disputes Act is repealed, any worker who objects, naturally enough, to subsidising a Party of whose policy he disapproves will presumably have to announce his political faith to the world by making application to be excused from paying the levy made by his union for political purposes ; that is, as things are at present, for the support of the Labour Party. It is asking too much of human nature to expect that he will not be subjected to, at least, petty discrimination by the union officials. Under the present system, a doubt
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