A Spectator's Notebook I T is quick work on the part
of the Soviet authorities to have got a verbatim report of the first two days of the Moscow trial translated into excellent . English to the extent of close on 300 pages (printed by the State Law Publishing House at Moscow) and circulated in London in less than a fortnight. The full report- (its accuracy has, of course, to be taken on trust) obviously puts isolated incidents in perspective as the cabled summaries in the daily papers could not. So far as these two days, at any rate, are concerned, the evidence of Macdonald and Thornton among the English prisoners overshadows everything, and it is manifest that Mac- donald's evidence in court—whatever the explanation of it may be—made conviction a foregone conclusion. Thornton too made sufficient admissions regarding the payment of small sums and the receipt of information to suggest that he may quite. well have infringed the law technically, though it is by no means easy to distinguish what he originally admitted and withdrew later from what he admitted to the end. Sinister glimpses of the original investigation emerge from his evidence. For example : " I wrote it because I was frightened." " I was simply afraid ; of what, I did not know myself." " That part of my deposition was suggested to me by the investigating judge." " I simply did not know, but I was asked to confess." " I wrote it after long questions and moral pressure." " These phrases are not mine : they were suggested." " I wrote that document under moral pressure." I notice, by the way, that in the reproduction of a docu- ment said to be in Thornton's handwriting, and acknow- ledged by him in court, the word " occupies " is spelt " occupys." It is hard to believe any educated English- man could have written that.
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