INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY
NATIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL
Chairman : J. MAXTON. MP.
Hon. Treasurer : F. W. JOWETT
Telephone : Central 3196 Telegrams : Ilper, Lud, London
Secretary : A. FENNER BROCKWAY, 35 St. Bride Street,
London, E.C.4.
3rd October, 1938
Sir Walter Citrine, Trade Union Congress, Transport House, Smith Square, S.W.1.
Dear Walter Citrine,
We have written to you a number of times about the P.O.U.M. trials, and like us, you may begin to think that it is a case of crying "Wolf, wolf." We have to-day received a letter, however, from Julian Gorkin, General Secretary of the P.O.U.M. and one of the prisoners, in which he says that they have been officially notified that the trial is to take place on October 11th. I think, therefore, that there is a basis for thinking that the trial is really planned. The prisonors do not yet know under what conditions the trial will take place or if it is to be public.
We need not recapitulate what we have said before, because we know that in every section of the working class, except the Communist Parties, tnere is concern about the trial irrespective of differing views about the political atLitude of the P.O.U.M.
We hope tnat the T.U.C. will be prepared to write to Senor Negrin on the matter and that it will approach the International Federation of Trade Unions to do so also.
Yours sincerely,
Fenner Brockway
General Secretary.
