EAST-END ROWDYISM.

“TACTICS OF MOSCOW.”

Extraordinary tactics are being pursued by the Communists in some of the East Landon constituencies, where attempts are being made by organised gangs of hooligans to break up the meetings of any candidate who dares to express his disapproval of the Labour policy. Especially is this the case in Poplar, Bethnal-green, and Hackney, and in each place the methods employed are so nearly identical as to leave little doubt that the whole affair has its origin in and obtains its guidance from one central point. In this way does the party which boasts of liberty and freedom assume the role of dictator, but it will indeed be strange if the sane and levelheaded workers of the East-end are hoodwinked by methods so foreign to all our ideas of fairness. To take first the case of South Hackney, where Captain Erskine Bolst, the former Conservative member, is engaged in a straight fight with Labour, whose champion is Mr. J. Holford Knight. Here it is a regular thing for Captain Bolst’s meetings to be obstructed in the most senseless fashion by a crowd of from fifty to a hundred roughs, who always assemble early, and, directly the meetings begin, unfurl their banners and commence to sing “The Red Flag.” South Hackney, by the way, has its own branch of the Communist party. It so happens that in the Town Hall there hangs a Union Jack, the colours of the local Territorial Regiment, and Captain Bolst scored a good point a couple of nights ago by pointing to this flag and leading the singing of the National Anthem immediately the obstruction began. A curious thing about these people is their reluctance to disclose their identity by accepting an invitation to mount the platform. Poll cards have been returned to the Conservative headquarters with such messages as “Socialism for ever,” but in each case the voter’s identification number has been carefully obliterated. Yesterday Captain Bolst, expressing his view of the matter to a representative of The Daily Telegraph, said, “My friends the Communists are still with me, and I am sure they are doing me a lot of good. I thrive on any opposition I receive, and, indeed, I should feel quite lonesome without their company.”