REDS GAOLED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 543, 29 May 1933, Page 2

REDS GAOLED

WELSH COMMUNISTS ; - -r ; — . s 'r ■ ENDEAVOURS TO CORRUPT BRITISH MILITAlRY? ?| /t . UNITS.' . - i TRAINEP IN MOSCOW. ' i London, Saturday. Four Welsh Communists, all miners, who Mr. Justice Humphreys said were more correctly deseribed as an organised gang of driminals, were sentenced at the Old Bailey for conspiring to seduce soldiers- from their duty iand allegiance to his Majesty.' Mr. Justice Humphreys passed the following sentences: — Ernest Charles Stead (36), twenty-one months' hard labour;Leonard Jefferies (34), three ' years' penal servitude); Samuel Paddock (40), fifteen months' hard labour; Ernest Whatley (43), twelve months' hard labour. The case for the Crown was that an endeavour was made to get copies of a paper called "The Soldiers' Voice, Organ of the Communis't Soldiers," disti'ibuted among soldiers at Newport Barracks b'y a Territorial named Lloyd, who was a member of the Communist Party. The defendants were found guilty on all counts. Detective Inspector Harris, of Newport, said that Stead began life as a miner and later attended a Laboui College in London for three years. ^ In 1926 he returned to Glamorganshire, where he became an active Communist. From 1927 to 1930 he_ attended what was known as a Lenin course at a Communist college in Moscow. The inspector said he understood that the students there received insiruction in theoretical and practical ievolutionary knowledge. In 1931 he was again in Russia as a delegate to a conference of Friends of th'e Soviet Union. He was known to the police in South Wales as a, man who by underground methods attempted to create strife and disorder. _ His one aim was revolution. As chief of the Communist Party in South "Wales, Stead issued instructions to such men as his fellow prisoners to undertake work which might expose them to conflict with the police, but he remained in his office. There was no question but that he was "well paid for his work.

Jefferies began life as a coal mmer and later obtained employment as a clerk. He first came to the notice of the police as a Communist in 1923. He took an active part in Cardiff in the Seamen's Minority Movement. His speeches were of a nature likely to cause disorder. He was connected with the Labour League of Ex-Ser-vicemen, the members of which were equipped with military uniforms, and no doubt their aim was revolution. Jefferies went to Russia, and on his return in 1931 he was appointed acting district organiser in South Wales in the absence in Russia of Stead. In that year he was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment for riot, unlawful assembly and assaulting the police. , ' .

"Gang of Criminals." Addressing Jefferies the Judge said. "I have heard enough of you to realise that you are a clever and educated person. I have no doubt you are rightly deseribed as a dangerous agitator. Less than two years ago you were found guilty of riot and assaulting the police, and I am told you were a leader in that riot. You are precisely the sort of person who is a danger to society, because you have a glib tongue, which you use for the purpose of misleading people, and misleading them into committing crime. You must go to penal servitude for three years." Mr. Justice Humphreys said that the jury had convicted the defendants of offences that must be regarded by everybody as of the greatest possible seriousness. They had had at the hands of the jury a perfectly fair and impartial trial. Addressing Stead, the Judge said: "I am satisfied that you are a dangerous revolutionary. You may call yourselves politicians, but I believe you are more correctly deseribed as an organised 'gang of criminals. The records of three of you show that to be so." On being sentenced, Jefferies shouted: "Down with Hitler justice." The Judge deseribed Paddock and Whatley as illiterate persons and not quite as bad as the oth'ers. B.M.A. TO MEET. _____