The Fascist March The Home Secretary's decision to allow the
Fascist march through South-East London on Sunday is regrettable. The reasons for this decision, as expressed in the Home Secretary's letter to Mr. Ben Smith, M.P., who had led a deputation pointing out the dangers of disorder which the march would entail, are in a sense unimpeachable ; it is unfortunate that in this case they do not fit the facts. These are, broadly, that, with or without the connivance of Fascist headquarters, young men connected with the Fascist movement have carried out a more or less systematic campaign of brutal assaults and scarcely less brutal insults against a community the great majority of whom are law-abiding citizens. The Home Secretary's decision to allow the march to take place under heavy police protection amounts to giving the sanction of the law to a provocative demonstration by men who have broken the law, or are at least associating themselves with law-breakers, against their victims. The right of what the Home Secretary calls " unpopular political creeds " to organise demonstrations is in a general way beyond question, and every good citizen will share the Home Secretary's hope that the East End Jew will control his justifiable wrath. But the animal is vicious : when attacked he defends himself.
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