Peter Hain Fund
Sir: I read with great interest Mr Dinshaw's letter (Spectator, November 13) in which he tells us that " We have decided to establish the Peter Hain Fund to ensure that Mr Hain's defence will not be limited at all by dependence on legal aid, and to provide general information on the background of the trial."
May I make these comments: (.1) As Mr Dinshaw does not disclose who " we " are perhaps the following details will serve as a guide.
(a) On May 24 the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Society for Individual Freedom, Mr G. K. Young, confronted Mr Hain on the radio programme The World This Weekend. Quoting from the March 1970 edition of the Young Communist League magazine Challenge, Mr Young showed that Mr Hain wanted above all to have the active support of the Young Communists. (b) Of those involved in the activities of the Stop the Seventy Tour, Dennis Brutus was sentenced to a term of imprisonment in South Africa under the Suppression of Communism act.
(c) Others involved in the STST were a man called Hallam of the Young Communist League and a Mr Digby Jacks of the National Union of Students who, like Mr Hain, has written articles for the Communist Morning Star.
(d) The NUS was affiliated to the STST committee and their name appears on STST notepaper along with those of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Young Communists and the United Nations Student Association, to name but a few.
(2) Mr Dinshaw is correct in stating that the Society For Individual Freedom is backing financially and otherwise the Peter Hain prosecution. The Hain Prosecution Fund was established to help offset the extensive costs involved as the S1F considers that the disruptive activities of the STST constitute one of the gravest threats to the liberty o fthe subject. A summons listing four charges of alleged conspiracy has now been served on Mr Hain.
(3) Finally, here are a few background details of the Hain family: When Mr Hain's parents lived in
South Africa they were ' restricted ' under the Suppression of Communism Act because of their support of the Communist-directed ' freedom fighters , one of whom
(John Harris) was hanged for murdering an old lady and injuring twenty-four people by exploding a bomb in Johannesburg railway station in July 1964. He was a close friend of the Hain family and young Peter, then fifteen years of age, read the funeral oration on behalf of his parents.
The Hain family has now found sanctuary in Britain, where Master Peter has lost no time in denouncing the whole British political structure, calling for its overthrow and for the creation of a " new society."
D. S. Fraser Harris Cedar Cottage, North Navas, Falmouth, Cornwall
Previous page
