Rights v. Duties

The British public, traditionally slow to Snake up its mind, was coming to a reluctant conclusion: that even homegrown Communists are Communists first, Britons second. An incident in Yorkshire last week illuminated the change in sentiment.

Editor W. Linton Andrews of the Tory Yorkshire Post learned that one of his staff members, 20-year-old Legman Peter Fryer, had carried a Red banner in a May Day demonstration. Andrews asked Communist Fryer for an explanation. He got an apology, and a promise from Fryer that he would never wear his Red sympathies in public again. But Reporter Fryer refused to renounce his Communism. The issue was plain; and neither the editor nor his employee tried to duck it. Wrote Editor Andrews:

"I have no desire whatever to interfere in your political opinions, but obviously, if you have no faith whatever in the principles for which the Yorkshire Post stands, your duty is to resign. . . . You must consult your conscience. . . ."

Peter Fryer consulted it for a week, then replied: "I have given my word that ... I shall not engage in public Communist activities. . . . But I am not able to go further because . . . my beliefs are so much a part of my life that it would not be possible. . . ."

Editor Andrews had consulted his conscience too. "In view of what you say," he wrote, "I am bound to regard you as a declared and eager Communist, hostile to [our] main political doctrines.... I must, therefore, give you a month's notice.. . ."

Even a year ago there would have been angry cries all over England that Reporter Fryer's personal rights had been violated. There were no such cries last week.

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