LIBEL BY COMMUNIST PAPER

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 190, 8 May 1940, Page 10

LIBEL BY COMMUNIST PAPER

Trade Union Officials Win Case DAMAGES TOTALLING £l4OO AWARDED LONDON, May 0. At the end of the Labour libel action in which Sir Walter Citrine and six members of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress sued E. RPountney, proprietor of. the . Daily Worker,” for damages, Sir AV alter Citrine was awarded £3OO, _ four others £2OO, and two others £l5O each. Mr, Justice Stable, in giving judgment, said that the libels were the cul- ' inination of long and persistent attempts to oust the plaintiffs from their positions. There was not a scintilla ’ of evidence in support of the. abominable charge Hint Sir Walter Citrine or any other member of the Labour delegation that went to Paris was engaged in anything dishonest. Mr. Justice Stable did not think that he was entitled to infer that Moscow had paid for the attack against the plaintiffs. That was a matter remaining in the decent obscurity m which Pountney apparently preferred to leave 1 The judge added that the libel was protracted and unscrupulous and inspired from abroad. The defendant Had not had the courage to go into the witness box. . Costs were awarded against the defendant. When the hearing opened Sir William Jowett, for the plaintiffs, sain that, the libel referred to the visit by the plaintiffs to France in December to initiate the move for an Anglo-French Trades Union Council. The “Daily Worker” was the official organ of the British Communist Party, which is affiliated to the Commun- , ist International in Moscow. Sir William Jowett read articles from the Daily. Worker” containing the following Passages: “The real purpose of the Paris meeting is to bring a million trade unionists behind the war machine of British and French Imperialism, ’ and Martial law in factories, a GO-hotir week, compulsory deductions from wages, and the abolition of shop stewards are some of the benefits Anglo-French unity may from across the Channel. Sir Walter Citrine said that the Labour movement had repeatedly declared that mopey. lo ,' the publication of the “Daily Worker came from Moscow.