29 OCTOBER 1932, Page 2

* * * * Misguided Marchers The marches of the

unemployed. on London are a deplorable business, and as the Minister of Health observed in the House of Commons, throw a heavy respon- sibility on those who organized them. Unfortunately the organizers in question, whether they are recognized Communists pursuing subversive purposes or not, are persons who acknowledge no responsibility at all in such a matter. The grim reality of the unemployment problem needs no such dramatic demonstration as the marchers seek to give it. The type of unemployed who deserves most sympathy, moreover, is not the type who goes in for hunger-marching. Men and women in need can only be satisfactorily dealt with by the machinery existing in their own localities. Aimless mobility, encouraged by an intelligible, but in this case misplaced, charity, is alto- gether to be deprecated. The best that can be hoped is that the marchers, having held their Hyde Park meeting, will in due course return peacefully to homes which they should never have left. There is nothing else for them to do, and the return journey will be lightened by none of the glamour of anticipation, however hollow, that may have buoyed them up on their road to London.