The letter

". . . At a time when we have 50,000 registered unemployed whose helpless resentment at their position is sharpened by the feeling that the world's potential wealth makes poverty inexcusable, together with a permanent percentage of simple hooligans ... it is unnecessary to blame the activities of Communists for any violence which may occur."

The letter went on: "We would suggest in fact that the penalisation of the two men in the case is merely an example of what can be described as the hysteria which is rapidly growing up in our country around the words 'Communism' and 'Communists,' words much used in this case, and apparently unavoidably so, since both men 'admitted' they were members of the Communist party.

"It may be argued that they (convictions and sentences) merely present the social rebel with his case against a capitalist society." Provocative words these, when it is remembered that the Communist regime of the Soviet Union was passing through a period of unprecedented growth. Being isolated from the capitalist network it was not affected by the Depression."