POLISH ELECTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1931, Page 5

POLISH ELECTIONS

RESPONSIBLE FOR TYRANNY AND BRUTALITY.

[United Press Association—By Electrio Telegraph.—Copyright.)

(Received this day at 11 a.m.. LONDON. January 17

Do; tor Marion Phillips, a Commoner, told a repi esc nta live of the SunHerald cable service that the Polish eleetiens were .responsible for the tyranny and brutality. She lias just returned to Loudon and says that some of the brutality were suggestive of orientalist and sadistic terrorism of the worst Russian type. There were a hundred arrests 011 trumped up charges. Dr Lit herniann, an old member of the Socialistic Party, was thrust in prison and released after the elections without trial. With fifteen gruesome wounds across his body, he is now permanently a broken man. Poland was a seething ferment for wlii h Marslial Pilsutl.ski regime is responsible.

“I asked them what was the need for such desperate action. They said because the deputies had immunity and they committed crimes against the penal code and we considered Polish politicians had to learn to he men with a sense of responsibility. Officials were sent round the villages telling peasants if they voted against Pilsudski, the taxes would he doubled, while electors in some parts were told if they did not show the officials what candidate they voted for, they would be regarded as voting against the Government. Some booths were closed at mid-day because it was declared a hundred per cent, had already voted. Some voters in order to Hide their voting papers carried them in their pipes and others hid them in cartloads of hay. These are merely examples of the hundred abuses,