An attempted assassination of Hendrick Verwoerd, prime minister of South Africa, was greeted by a Freedom editorial which was headed "Too bad he missed" sparking criticism from pacifists in the anarchist movement and a lengthy discussion of the role of violence in anarchist thought and practice. The controversy is reprinted in full, along with "A Short History of Political Violence in Britain" by Martyn Everett by and two brief essays by Errico Malatesta published in the early 1920s regarding his thoughts on the role of violence.