THE UNEMPLOYED HUNGER MARCH
[To the Editor of TILE SPECTATOR.]
am afraid that the Hon. E. A. Stonor, Secretary of the anti-Socialist and anti-Communist Union, has rather missed the point of my recent letter to which he has replied. What I tried to emphasize there was that proof of extremism (whether Left or Right) is not always disproof of certain righteous principles of extremism, of which the present Hunger March is eminently one. It is not sufficient to pooh-pooh it away simply because it is said to be Com- munist-organized. The matter of organization is of minor importance. It is the protest that counts, and statistics and reports have shown that grounds exist for protest. Other than a march, the unemployed have no way of getting publicity for their plight, and they have a perfect right to do so, having financed the march from the coppers of the koor and workless themselves. It therefore seems most unfair, to put it mildly, that the
Fighting Forces are not only allmied but actively encouraged by the Press to give full publicity to death, war and militarism by all manner of militaristic tattoos, Army, Navy, and Air Displays, &c., whilst a similar attempt by the poorest classes of the community to get publicity for their known hunger and want, is met, not with a similar welcome, but a most monstrous Press campaign of abuse and scurrility, the Communist bogey being dragged out as a last resort to damn Sand discredit the March. One instinctively feels that the Press " doth protest too much," and that their hostility was motivated less by feat of the Communists (a numerically small, impotent and declining body) than by displeasure at hearing, and unwillingness to admit the disgraceful con- ditions exposed by the marchers, who will form a living question mark to the country, a giant advertisement of unemployment.
Whilst holding no brief for the Communist or any other political party, I feel then and feel even more strongly now (as many have since written to tell me) that such hysterical threats against a peaceful procession of poor people (who have been strictly ordered to avoid disorder, even if provoked) scarcely come with good grace from the free Press of a land which boasts—often with a nauseous " Schadenfreudian " unctuosity—of being one of the few remaining bulwarks of democratic liberty in the world. Indeed, what is really important and serious is the ominous fact that such long-kept- up animosity to an orderly demonstration, possible only in a democratic country (especially of the Blackshirt-Rothermere Press) appears as ugly portents of a possible approaching abrogation of the hard-won rights of free speech, assembly and movement, which, having vanished from much of the Continent, are beginning to be gravely endangered here, as several disturbing events have recently shown, the hostility to the Hunger March being only one of many.
It is agreed by everybody that the marchers have an incontrovertible case, and a perfect right to ventilate it. It makes not the slightest difference to that case and the justice of the cause whether the demonstration be organized by Communists, Conservatives, Sacred Elks or Fascists. Inci- dentally, it is strange that the Fascists, who profess to fight for the interests of the poor and unemployed, have not organized a single protest of their own, never mind march. Had they done so it would be fascinating to see whether the Rothermere Press would batter them, and stigmatize the marchers as being poor Fascist dupes, organized by Blackshirt revolu- tionaries in the pay of llitler, Mussolini and Northcliffe House !
I feel sure that Mr. Stonor will agree that, far from being futile, the March is important in constituting nothing less than an immense living advertisement of Unemployment ; that whatever else it does or does not achieve, it will bring the problem of unemployment right under the eyes of people. The sight of these ragged legions, workless and ill-fed, tramp. ing through the towns, villages and hamlets of the length and breadth of Britain will not be lost upon the people who watch them pass—especially upon the inhabitants of Cathedral towns and the more prosperous parts of the country where unemployment may be still regarded as a rather remote nightmare. To these gentler people, especially, these marching thousands will come as an eye-opener, as a tragic reminder of the scourge and destruction that have stricken the one-time prosperous Industrial North, and brought havoc,
74 Granville Road, Liverpool, 1.5.
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