A Labour matter arising out of Bolshevist sympathies in Canada was dealt with by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council recently, when the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Haldane, Viscount Cave, Lerd Dunedin, and Mr. Justice Duff, of the Supreme Court of Canada, heard a petition from Robert B, Russell, for leave to appeal against a judgement of the Appeal Court of Manitoba, which upheld a decision by a Court below, convicting him of seditious con. spiracy in connexion with the Winnipeg strike of May and June, 4919, and sentencing him to two years' hard labour.
In his petition, Russell, who was secretary of the International Machinists' Association, alleged that his arrest and that of seven other persons was made for the purpose of breaking the strike, and that there was no evidence to support the allegation that for three years he had been engaged in a Seditious conspiracy. He further submitted that the Crown counsel inade_use of many irrelevant matters for the purpose of prejudice, that they were leading members of the Citizen's Committee opposing the strike, and that the address to the jury for the Crown exhibited a spirit of intense partisanship.
(Mr. W. H. Trueman, x.c. (Canadian Bar), appeared on behalf of the petitioner, while Sir John Simon, x.c., Mr. A. J. Andrews, (Canadian Bar), and Mr. James Wylie were counsel for the Soviet Goverxment Apvocatep.
_Mr. Trueman argued that the Canadian Judge ought to have withdrawn the case from the jury.
The Lord Chancellor read a report of a speech delivered Russell. during the strike. In that address he predicted a revolution in Canada in which the working classes would triumph and the capitalists would find themselves im the same position as those of Russia. He advocated a Soviet form of Government for Canada, and declared that if a revolution came there there would be bloodshed, and the amount. of it would depend upon the working classes. Was it not, his Lordship asked, for the jury to say, when 'a man declared that there would be bloodshed and that the amount depended on the working classes, whether that showed—seditious agreement between the speaker and the persons attending the meeting ai_which the speech was made?
Mr. Trueman said the mere fact ai the speech being made did not establish seditious agreement.
The Lord Chancellor—Do you dispute that it is a seditious speech? Is it your contention that this was not admissible as evidence of seditions agreement?
Counsel replied that it should have been left to the jury as evidence, instead of which the Judge
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