THERE CANADA |

WERES SOME
MORE OF THEM}

NEW YEAR
ail led ’

By MALCOLM. MacEWEN |

LONDON

CLARENCE, the _ split- >
minded meglomaniac with de-,
—-lusions of grandeur, who has just
_ been jailed for five years under
Britain’s Official Secrets Act, was
a great hoaxer.
But the reports of the result
his secret trial, in which he
appeared as.a “master spy” in
the pay of the Soviet Union, were
__ a bigger hoax than anything Clar-
ence himself ever thought of.
_ For John Clarence was no more
a “master spy” than he was the
“Duke of Clarence” or the “Con-
- sul-General of the Democratic
_ Republic of Germany,” to take
only two of the bogus titles with
which he invested himself.
No doubt he was guilty of a
technical breach of the Official
_ Secrets Act in “recording” a code-
_ word and some information, when
employed as a civilian clerk at a
eeoral Army quartermaster’s

Pp oAS: - former officer in the Ter-
_ vitorial Army myself, I doubt,
_ however, whether the “secret”
. codewords or information to be
collected in such an office’ would —
See 8 tow. ot berns to an
enemy.

Met ee

eidisnce! was not even accused _
of passing information to the
Soviet Union. “The case against
_ you,” said the judge, “is not that
_ you passed any information to an
3 alien body or organization.”

_ “There was no suggestion,” re-
_ ported the London Daily Herald,
“that. Clarence ever gave any
_ secrets to the Russians. In fact,
all he ever did for them was to
distribute Communist literature
_ in Hyde Park for a small wage.”

Indeed, according to the Daily

Herald, the Russians refused to
give him any employment he
thought worthy of him. This con-
firms the statement issued by the
Soviet embassy that it refused to
-accept Clarence’s services as a
_ distributor of Soviet newspapers
to Soviet displaced persons,

‘The Daily Herald also records
that Clarence made an offer of
_his services to the United States

embassy. “He was not employed
there either, although he receiv-
“ed a few pounds.”

__ So he was actually paid by the

-Chief-Inspector Ward, of Scot-

you headed Embassy,

land Yard, said that Clarence, re-
_ceived “small sums of money”
from the Soviet consulate for
selling Communist literature at
Marble Arch. Such a payment,
even if made, has nothing what-
soever to do with spying.

Yet the headline in the London
Times (echoed by most Canadian
daily papers), claimed: “Commun-
ist’s access to Secret Files: ‘In
Pay of Soviet Authorities’.”

Clarence was not, in fact a
Communist. He had joined the
British Communist party in May

- 1952, was suspended for irregu-

larities about funds in September
and expelled in December. 1952.
He got the job with the Terri-
torial Army in March 1953.

ces 83 os
Sinister ‘significance has been
attached by the press to the fact

that Clarence recorded the sec-
ret codeword and information on

a piece of paper headed “Embassy
Soviet Union.”

This gives the impression that
Clarence had a piece of Soviet
embassy notepaper. But the judge
said that Clarence recorded the
information “in a document which
Soviet
Union.”

Note the words—“which you
headed.” It was Clarence him-
self who wrote the words on the
paper. He could just as easily
have written “Embassy of the

_ United States.”

It may be argued, “But you
don’t know what the evidence
was.” That’s perfectly true.

The trial was conducted ©
secret, so that opinions have to
be based on reports of the state-
ments made the judge and others

at the end of the trial, after the

verdict had been given.

We have heard neither the
case for the prosecution, nor the
case for the defense — if “de-

_fense” it can be called, for Clar-
ence insisted on defending him-

self; it was like opposing heavy
artillery with a bent pea-shooter.
A secret trial tends to convey
the impression that some deadly
secrets have been betrayed; it
robs the public of any chance to
weigh the evidence, and robs the
accused of one of the recognized
Safeguards of English justice.

British press has field day
eal ‘master spy’ hoax

It seems altogether ludicerous
to use this procedure to protect
the “secrets”? of a Territorial
quartermaster’s office, and quite
unnecessary to use it for the
whole trial.

Why, for instance, was the evi-
dence of Harry Pollitt, general
secretary of the British Commun-
ist party, given in secret? What
his evidence was I do not know,
but it is a reasonable guess that

“he left the court in no doubt that

Clarence had been expelled from
the Communist party after a
membership of only four months.

Yet, to judge by press reports,
this fact does not seem to have
been mentioned by the. judge at

’ the end of the trial, and the press

has been unanimous in suppress-
ing the British Communist party’s
statement to this effect.

The whole affairs leaves a very
nasty taste in the mouth. The
proper place for Clarence would
seem to be in a hospital, not in a
prison.

And the case suggests that the
Churchill government must be ~

very hard up for evidence of
Soviet spying if it has to make
a mountain out of such a tiny
molehill.

WHY NOT CANADA?

Latin America trades

with socialist world

spite of the opposition of Wall

Street which seeks to keep
Latin America as a special pre-
serve from which super-profits
can be drawn, the governments
(mainly anti-communist) of sev-
eral Latin American countries
have been driven by economic
needs to enter into: mutually ad-
vantageous trade agreements with
the Soviet Union:and the Peo-
ple’s Democracies.

A recent New York Times story
carried the information that for
the first half of 1954, the Soviet
Union ranked as fourth best cus-
tomer for Argentine products, sur-
passed only by the U.S., Britain,
and West Germany. The volume
of Argentine export trade in that.
period was higher than for any

half year in the last five years.
-are learning that trade with the

The economist Seymour Harris,
in another New York Times feat-
ure article, lamented the fact that
in 1953 there were 32 trade agree-
ments between Latin American
countries’ and Eastern European
countries. In 1952 there had
been only seven such agreements.

An additional agreement was
announced late_in November be-
tween Brazil and Poland. This
covered an exchange of $14 mil-
lion worth of goods during 1955
and replaced a previous agree-
ment covering the exchange of

_$6 million worth.

In April, 1954, the Soviet Union
moved into first place as a pur-
chaser of goods from Uruguay.

The UN Economic Survey of
Latin America (1953) speaks of

kets in Latin America.

“the spectacular increase” in
wool exports from Uruguay, due
mainly to demand in eastern Euro-
pean countries eur the Soviet

~ Union.

Argentina also has trade agree-
ments with Czechoslovakia, Pol-
and, Hungary, and Rumania. The
U.S. share of the Argentine mar-
ket is falling.

The Argentine agreement with
the Soviet Union covers trade
worth $150 million. Argentina
will sell wool and meat in ex-
change for machinery, and oil
products, including aviation gaso-
line. :

Brazil has trade pacts with Hun-
gary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.

The Latin American countries

U.S. means low prices for the
raw material that they sell, and
high prices for the manufactured
goods they buy.

From the U.S. they get no help
in developing manufacturing in-
dustry at home, the essential step
for prosperity in Latin America.
Trade on such terms simply in-
creases U.S. domination.

Canada is losing valuable mar-
A policy
of loans to Latin American coun-
triés to enable them ‘to develop
industry and expand their home
market, as advocated by the
Labor - ‘Progressive party in a.

statement on December 13, would
help Canadian trade and help the.
people of Latin America.

Rio de Janeiro is the bustling capital of ‘Brazil, which has a
trade pact with Poland. Argentina; the other great cOanDy. of Latin
America, has a trade pact with the USSR.

FROM OUR CONTEMPORARI ES

U.S. views Canada as expendable

1. a leading editorial carried in.

its December 20 issue, the Mon-
treal Star charged that the United
States considers Canada “expend-
able” in its plans for continental
“defense.” ‘The idea seems to
be,” says the editorial, based on
a Time magazine article, “to
bring enemy bombers down, with
their bombloads, in Canada. .. .”

Here is the Montreal Star edi-
torial, slightly abridged:

ont Se

"FHE cover piece in the Ganadian

edition of Time magazine this
week is devoted to continental air
defense. It tells the story of the
Continental Air Defense Com-
mand under General Ben Chidlaw.

The conclusion any Canadian,

reading it will come to is that

this rman existe solely for the
defense of the United States, and
that for this purpose Canada is
expendable. So far as attack from
the north is concerned, the idea
seems to be, if Time is right, to

bring enemy bombers down, with

their bombloads, in Canada, far
from the bomber bases and stra-
tegie areas of the United States.

‘ We don’t imagine for a mo-
ment that this is General Chid-
law’s. understanding of his role
or that his orders were given to
him in the words attributed by
Time to the United States Joint
Chiefs of Staff “Defend the
United States against air attack.”
By agreement with the Canadian
government General Chidlaw’s
command has a Canadian head-
quarters in direct touch with gen-

_ PACIFIC TENE = JANUARY 7, 1955 - _ - PAG

eral headquarters in Colorado
Springs. It is hardly conceiv- ’
able that the Canadian govern-
ment has permitted the establish-
ment of a command post here
solely for the defense of the -
United States...

Time . . . adds that. jointly —
Canada and the U.S. decided
this fall to go ahead with a dis-
tant early warning - radar line,
the Dew line, along the conti-_
nent’s Arctic edge, far enough
away to give the U.S. three hours
warning. We should have hoped
that it would give us some warn-
ing, too, and that Canadian inter-
ceptors scrambling as a result of —
far northern warnings would have

in mind the defense of this coun- |

try as well as the defense of ihe ie
United States. ' ty