The Hunger .Marehers" demonstration as I saw it was an
impressive but dispiriting event. The spectacle, for example, of the friendly and almost paternal police:. men riding at the head of each contingent of the forces of subversion, and shepherding the marchers to their places, had in it something at once ironical and familiar. The behaviour of the crowds, was, as every eye-witness has testified, admirable. As a matter of fact the most belligerent-looking and - down-and-out group I noticed . on Sunday turned- out to be the OXford versity contingent. There was all the look of revolu- tionaries—parlour revolutionaries, very likely—,-abOut them. Actually British Communists, I believe, are cdging to the Right . rather than the J.Jeft, with the hope of carrying more of the I.L.P. school with them. A friend of mine who got an irregular entry to the Council of Action meeting in Bermondsey Town Hall the day before the Hyde Park demonstration brought - away one fixed impression, that the Communists of the older generation there were thoroughly scandalized at the comparative moderation of their juniors.
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