PACKING UP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 68, 22 March 1933, Page 7

PACKING UP.

RUSSIAN OFFICIALS. Reported Preparations to Leave < London. STIR AT EMBASSY. J (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) ( (Received 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 21. The "Daily Express" states that ' Arcos, the Kussian trading organisation in London, has received instructions from Moscow to have its finances ' settled and audited by April 15, two ] ays before the expiry of the trade agreement. The entire staff of this and other Russian organisations here, the paper states, have been warned to be ready to receive orders to return to Moscow at any time. The Commission of Financial Control will arrive within a week. The political correspondent of the "Daily Mail" states that the Soviet Ambassador, M. Maiaky, is reported to be deeply concerned about the suspension of the trade treaty negotiations. He immediately called a conference of leading Embassy officials and other .Soviet representatives in London. The lastnamed were warned to hold themselves in readiness for a sudden return to Russia. Pending the receipt of instructions from London, the British Ambassador, Sir Esmond Ovey, has not replied to a hint from the Soviet concerning the release on bail of the Metropolitan Vickers Company's engineers. Criticism of what is termed Britain's "high-handed attitude" in suspending trade negotiations with the Soviet is heard even in some foreign circles. These critics declare that Britain is treating Russia like some unimportant country, whereas the Soviet leaders consider Russia to be an important world Power. This feeling, it is urged, will be stronger if Britain demands the unconditional release of the arrested men. NEW CRIMINAL CODE. SPEEDING UP EXECUTIONS. ("Times" Cables.) LONDON, March 21. The Riga correspondent of "The Times" states that M. Krylenko, Commissar of Justice, in addressing a conference of judges in Moscow, demanded the urgent revision of the criminal code, which, he said, was inadequate to dea with the new stage of the class war. M. Krylenko appeared to be annoyed because the code he presented in 1931 has not yet been promulgated. The death penalty figures in the 1926 code only as a temporary measure, but it receives a new lease of life under his code, which demands execution 72 hours after sentence. These alterations do not affect the Ogpu, which usually inflicts the death penalty before publishing the sentence. M. Vyshinsky, the Supreme Court prosecutor, who presumably will prosecute the Vickers engineers, has also demanded the promulgation of the new code. ■