The Bay of Plenty Times FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1949. The World is Sick Of The Soviet's Mechanical Cynicism

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 15135, 18 November 1949, Page 2

The Bay of Plenty Times FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1949. The World is Sick Of The Soviet's Mechanical Cynicism

Although, to those who give any thought to international affairs, what has just been very aptly described as "the mechanical cynicism of the Soviet regime" has long been apparent, it is only now. after more than four years of unsuccessful dealings with that regime, that the Western powers have come right out in the open and put their opinions in plain words.

Speaking to the ' United Nations Political Committee on Wednesday, the British Minister of State. Mr Hector McNeil, pointed out that relations with Russia, wholely as a result of the uncompromising attitude of that nation, were not improving. The danger as Mr McNeil sees it, with an inner knowledge of international relations of necessity denied to the ordinary man, is that the free nations of the world, having been snubbed, rebuffed and misrepresented at every turn, would avoid contacts with the Kremlin in even' way possible. The effect of Russia's campaign to sabotage peace he described as disastrous.

That- the patience, of the Western powers has been completely exhausted was plainly shown by Mr McNeil when he told M. Vyshinsky to go back to Moscow and tell his government that they alone are cutting off their own people from the sympathy of the world. If there is any further doubt as to the complete realisation of the democracies' of the impossibility of coining to any agreement with Russia, so long as its present, attitude persists, if was dispelled by New Zealand's own representative, Sir Carl Berendsen, who was equally outspoken.

Speaking on Tuesday, Sir Carl denounced the Soviet proposal for a Big Five peace pact as "one in a long series of phoney resolutions for purely propaganda purposes," and drew a parallel between the present Soviet charges and the "childish absurdities' of the Nazis in the 1930 V. His summing up of the Soviet technique was masterly. "We see," he said, "the guilty accusing the innocent. We see intentions attributed to others which are held by those who attribute them. We see again the repeated shrieks of 'war monger' which Hitler used."

It is extremely doubtful if even the Russian leaders themselves believe for one moment; these palpable absurdities, but they sound well in Pravda, or blared to the four corners of tin* Soviet Union of the sixteen Soviet Socialist Republics and to Ilnur numerous —but mostly unwilling—satellites, from the Moscow radio. We have now reached the stage where it is obvious that no reconciliation of views is possible and if Russia is virtually -ostracised by the Jong-suffering democracies it cannot make the Russian determination to destroy the Western way of life any stronger. The Russians have virtually asked for such treatment and it seems as though, at long last, they are going to gel it.