4 OCTOBER 1924, Page 3

The defence which the Attorney-General, Sir Patrick _Hastings, offered in

the House of Commons on Tuesday for his abandonment of the action against the Communist, Mr. John Campbell, was, to be quite frank, a lamentable performance. We can call to mind very few things quite so bad. Mr. Campbell, it will be remembered, was the acting editor of the Workers' Weekly, and during his temporary editorship the paper published an Open Letter to the Fighting Forces• of a violently seditious kind. Soldiers, sailors and airmen were adjured to refuse to obey orders. They were exhorted to " Turn your weapons on your oppressors." Such language was as plain a breach of the law as there could possibly be. When Mr. Campbell was brought into Court on August 13th, however, the Prosecuting Counsel abandoned the case.

* * * *