TEN-DAY TRIAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 84, 10 April 1933, Page 7

TEN-DAY TRIAL.

BRITONS IN MOSCOW.

Russian Editor's Unwelcome Revelations. BRITISH STATESMAN'S VIEW. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 12 noon.) LONDON, April 9. After being confidentially shown the 67-page indictment of themselves and others charged with the wreckage of Russian power plants, the Metropolitan Viekers employees, who are on bail, conferred with their solicitor, Mr. Turner, at the British Embassy.

British attaches visited Mr. W. H. Mac Donald, who is still in gaol. The trial is expected to last 10 days.

Sir Austen Chamberlain, in a speech at Birmingham, referring to the Moscow arrests, said he hoped that the strong feeling expressed during the House of Commons debate had brought home to the Soviet Government the condition on which alone it was possible to maintain friendly relations with Britain, or for British citizens to trade with Russia, contributing to that country's prosperity and development.

The Moscow newspapers belatedly disclose the British Government's measures for controlling imports from Russia. They fulminate against everything British. "Izvestia" declares: "Britain cannot frighten us. The Soviet is determined mercilessly to mete out justice to all wreckers, including British."

The trial, originally fixed for to-day, is not likely to be held before next Thursday—the Russian "day of rest." This will enable as many workers as possible to attend.

Counsel for Mr. John Cushny is M. Peter Lidoff, and for Messrs. Charles Nordwall and Gregory, M. Aaron Dolmatovsky. Mr. Mac Donald is to be represented by M. Smirnoff, a prominent member of the Collegium.

The trial of employees of the Stalin Engineering Works, charged with wrecking, resulted in sentences of 10 years' imprisonment downwards and two acquittals. Costly Machinery Wasted. The Riga correspondent of "The Times" states that a special decree dismissed M. Bogushevsky, chief editor of the official organ of heavy industries, soon after his publication of the Soviet's decision to develop trade in other countries besides Britain and Germany. Bogushcvsky's disclosures included the exposure of the mishandling and losing of costly imported machinery, the factories' refusal to accept Soviet-made equipment, also an assertion that half the output of the Soviet metal works were mere scrap iron.

The "Sunday Pictorial" says that one of the reasons suggested for the arrest of the Viekers. employees is that they knew too much about the Soviet's war preparations.

"Reynolds' Illustrated News" declares that the arrests were partly retaliation for a foolish attempt in which the editor of the "Whitehall Gazette," Mr. Maundy Gregory, was implicated to disseminate separatist propaganda in the Ukraine and Cossack districts. ALLEGED DEFAULT. SOVIET PAYMENT TO TRANCE. (Becelved 1 p.m.) LONDON, April 9. It is reported that the Soviet has defaulted in its payment of £50,000, due on March 1, by the Ammunition Trust to a French company for supplying "technical assistance."