The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, JUNK 5. 1923. ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 132, 5 June 1923, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, JUNK 5. 1923. ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.

For the cause ihat lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resietane« l For the future in the distance, And the good that tee mn do.

-Mr. Lloyd George's case for Russia, which appeared in our cable news on .Saturday, is marked by characteristic picturesqueness and iiicisivoness of i phrase, and contains a good deal of i wisdom. Its defect is that it states j by no means the whole case; it does not,' for example, consider the basic difficulty | that the British Government encounters ■ in dealing with Moscow, the tact that Moscow is sworn to destroy the British ] political systems in Britain and abroad, i and is actively engaged in doing so. Tt does, however, remind British people of ; what they owe to Russia, ami of the truth that the Soviet Government is not ! the Russian people. His picture of the mingled heroism and corruption in ! Russia during , the war is deeply impres- j she. The Russian peasants who, with ' terribly inadequate artillery support and j sometimes without even rides in their ', hands, -withstood the magnificently j equipped German war machine, helped to save us , and the world; let us never forget their dogged, patient heroism. The misgovernment of those tragio years did much to produce the debacle of 1917 and foster Bolshevism in Russia. The country was exhausted; the ruling class had lost its grip; the Liberals and patriotic Socialists were not strong enough for the situation; and so a new tyranny was born. The mass of the people, had really little or no say in tho matter. One tyranny was deposed by a minority, and another set in its place, ilr. Lloyd George makes much of the cruelties of the old regime. They are a terrible record, but the Bolsheviks have surpassed it. Moreover, the Czar governed in accordance with certain national traditions, and even his despotism ]md admitted a measure of democracy into the Government, tinder him there was always a little hope for freedom. What hope ie there under the Soviet system, which definitely slams the door in democracy's face and declares freedom to be a bourgeois superstition? . Mr. Lloyd Georgo bids us consider the people of Hussia, who benefit 'by our trading and would suffer if we broke off relations with the Soviet. They are I governed by a system in which they | really have no voice, but the tyranny established over them appears to be firmly based, for the time being at any rate, and is the only medium through which the nation can be reached. It is only an ignorant person who sees a ttolshcrik in every Russian. Tho governing Communists have never been more than a tiny handful, and the mass of the poople have been the material with which they have experimented. The people have suffered frightfully, and Mr. Lloyd Ueorge asks the British nation whether it wishes to add unnecessarily to these sufferings and lay up trouble for itself in the future. British people do not wish to cause Russians any preventable hardship. They detest Bolshevism, hut those who think and feel are grateful to the Russians and wish them the speediest recovery from their national sickness. The difficulty is, however, the Soviet attitude towards Britain. What are you to do with a Government that refuses to conform to international usage, breaks its promises wholesale, and openly and secretly works for your destruction? How much of this sort of tiling can you stand, even for the sake of a suffering third party? That is the problem before the British Government. The suggestion that the Government wishes for war with Russia is a grotesque libel that should not impose upon any sensible person. It wants nothing so much as peace and expanding trade. There are, however, limits of forbearance and toleration beyond which no self-respect-ing Government can go. Fortunately the Moscow Government seems to he in a conciliatory mood; it is even reported that it is willing to agree to reduce its diplomatic personnel in Central Asia and allow the British Foreign Office a voice in the appointments. This sounds rather too much of a concession to be true but it may be that Moscow realises that Britain is in earnest, and that it has concluded that it cannot afford to break with her. At any rate, the prospects of settlement seem to be better than they were a week or two ago.