MORE ARRESTS IN MOSCOW.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20807, 17 March 1933, Page 11

MORE ARRESTS IN MOSCOW.

TOTAL NOW FORTY. RUSSIAN ADVOCATE TO CONDUCT DEFENCE. (L'N-ilT.n PIIEBB ASSOCIATION—B? EI.ECTMO TBLBGHAPH—COPTIUOHT.) (Roctivcd March 16, 8.2 p.m.) LONDON, March 16. It is officially announced from Moscow that nine more employoes of the Metropolitnn-Vickcrs Electrical Company havo beou arrested and charged with sabotage. All are Russians, and six of thorn are women. The number of arrests is now 40. The "News-Chronicle" is informed that the defence of the persons arrested is being entrusted to a Russian advocate, officially appointed. English counsel are not being allowed to appear. "The Times" says the British Government 's representations to the Soviet cannot bo too strong. It is intolerable that British subjects working in .Russia, executing contracts with the Soviet Government, should be included among the victims of the Ogpu 's hunt for .scapegoats or miscalculations and mismanagement by the Soviet authorities. RUSSIAN ASSUMPTION OF GUILT. (Received March 17, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, March 16. The Moscow correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" says a leading nvtirle in "Pravda," headed "No mercy on our enemies," assumes before the trial that the charges against the Englishmen are -well founded, though foreign correspondents are forbidden to comment on the case, as it; is sub judicc. SOVIET EXPLANATION. HELD FOR INVESTIGATION. MOSCOW, March 15. Tho Foreign Oflicc has informed the British Embassy that it is impossible to say whothor tho six employees of the Vickers Company -will be tried until the investigation of the sabotage charges is concluded. The trial, if any, will bo public. It is not stated whether counsel will be allowed. GRAVE VIEW OF INCIDENT. STATEMENT IN COMMONS. LONDON, March 15. In the House of Commons, Mr Stanley Baldwin said that tho British Ambassador at Moscow (Sir Esmond Ovey) had been instructed to express in strong terms the Government's grave view of the Soviet's proceedings against the Vickers Company's employees, which it was convinced wero groundless. Tho Soviet authorisation that the Ogpu (Soviet political police) should conduct tho trials without restriction, and impose death sentences, ha,s increased the anxiety in British official quarters. Sir Esmond Ovey could ask the prisoners only whether their health and the food was satisfactory, and the exercise sufficient. [Six English engineers, employees ot tho Metropolitan Vickers Company, wore arrested by tho Ogpu in Moscow on a charge of sabotage. They had gone to the Soviet Union under an agreement with the company, as 1 advisers on the manufacture of electrical equipment. Two have since been released, hut are not allowed to leave Moscow.] MARTIAL LAW IN RUSSIA. WIDESPREAD DISLOYALTY ALLEGED. LONDON, March 15. The Riga correspondent of "Tho Times" reports that arrestß of engineers continue, the Soviet police intending to make a clean sweep as part of the new policy of political economy. He says that the Soviet Government has proclaimed an emergency law in all the Soviet Republics curtailing the functions of the law courts and endowing tho Ogpu with tho power of administering summary justice, including the death penalty. The Government allege*' widespread disloyalty and sabotage, which necessitates tho adoption of this course. Thorc is no appeal against this martial law. to which the arrested engineers arc subject.—"The Times" Cabl.e. EARLIER ADVENTURE IN RUSSIA. MR MONKHOUSE A FORMER RESIDENT OF TARANAKI. Mr Allan Monkhouse, one of the first four of the English engineers to be arrested in Moscow, and also the first to be released on parole, at one time lived in Stratford, Taranaki. He was a son of Mr W Monkhouse, who bought a farm at Tahora for him. Mr Allan llonkhouae disliked farming, however, was not l.if first unpleasant experience in Russia for he was in Moscow at the Smo of the revolution, and with several companions tramped across Wibtria in the early days of the Bolshevik regime. The tnp took many S 8 tho party eventually arriving at vSUocL y Aftcr a great deal of E d ff a ß i Archangel, and on his house wub , h cure< 3 a positfoTwiS tto Metropolitan Vickers rZmTny Ho has been in Russia, in STKco of that company, for some years. ._