Target for Communists
That the Commissioner of Police should have had to request, and the Home Secretary to concede, a reimposition of the Order pro-
hibiting all political processions in London is to be 'regretted, for it involves a restriction of the political liberty in this country ; but there can be no question of the necessity of such a-step. From the admirably objective account of the events of last Sunday afternoon in North London given by Mr. Chuter Ede to the House of Commons certain indisputable facts emerge. The Fascist British Union, which, however repugnant its opinions to the great majority of citizens, has its rights, intended to march in procession from Ridley Road to Wood Green. The police directed it to vary the original route for another. It did so. On reaching the spot where its meeting was to be held, it was ordered to disperse without a meeting. It did so. The hostile crowds which had gathered were kept away from the changed route, and, when there was no meeting to attack, . turned on the police, and assailed them with milk bottles, lumps of concrete and other missiles. The Home Secretary, summing the affair up, said explicitly: "The organisers of the meeting carried out to the full every instruction given to them by the police." That fact, it may be repeated, will not commend their doctrines to anyone, but it makes it the more regrettable that victory should have rested with the forces of disorder, represented by the throwers of milk bottles and concrete, who have succeeded in getting Fascist, and all other, processions stopped. That a number of Communist hooligans should have been fined various sums from Lro downwards for their part in the affair can give little satisfaction. The sinister element in the affair is the growth of a spirit of intolerance, which the Fascists have manifested often enough in the past but of which the Communists are now the dominant exponents. It has been suggested, no doubt rightly, that if the Fascists were left alone they would soon dwindle away. The Communists pretty clearly prefer that they should remain as an excuse for disorder.
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