Fascists and Hooligans No denunciation can be too strong for
the hooligans respon- sible for the injury sustained by Sir Oswald Mosley at Liverpool last week. Anything in the nature of serious political disturbance is rare in this country, and provocative though Fascist processions, and many Fascist speeches, are, it will be a lowering of the national standard if the nation allows itself to be provoked into abandonment of its habitual and creditable tolerance. This, moreover, was not a case of a political procession—such as the police authorities sometimes ban and sometimes unwisely permit—but of a political meeting, which is a totally different thing. The right of free speech needs to be guarded more jealously than ever, and everyone who cares for the national tradition will insist on maintaining that right intact for the benefit of the political extremes no less than of the great central mass, on which Fascism and Communism make so imper- ceptible an impression. Blackguardly attacks. like that it Liverpool do actual benefit to the cause they are meant to injure, ' but there are far more fundamental reasons for denouncing them than that.
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