A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 42, 13 November 1936, Page 7

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

M. Litvinoff Honoured

M. Litvinoff has been decorated with the Order of Lenin, Russia’s highest honour. The award was made on M. Litvinoff’s sixtieth birthday, July 17 last, by the Central Executive Committee, ‘'for outstanding services in the struggle for peace at the post of leader of Soviet diplomacy.” A joint message of greetings from the party and the Government, and messages from colleagues, Soviet workers and others, were sent to him. "’Together with us, who have the happiness to work under your leadership, the whole of our great and powerful U.S.S.R. greets you.” a group of workers of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs telegraphed M. Litvinoff at the time of the award, when he was at the conference discusing the rearmament of the Dardanelles. His Career.

Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff, Peoples Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., was born in Byalostok, the son of a minor bank employee. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898. He was arersted in 1901, and escaped from prison in 1902. In 1903 he worked for the Bolshevik Party in Switzerland, and later went to London. In 1908 he was arrested in France and deported to Britain. He lived in London until 1918, most of the time as secretary and leader of the Bolshevik group in Britain. He married a niece of Sir Sidney Low, the political scientist. Under the direct leadership of Lenin, he conducted a struggle to enlist Russian emigrants in Britain to the Bolshevik cause. He was appointed Ambassador to Britain on the day after the Revolution in 1917, tout was not accorded official recognition by the British Government. In September, 1918, he was imprisoned as a hostage for the .British agent, Bruce Lockhart, who had been arrested at Moscow, and was subsequently exchanged for M. Litvinoff. On his arrival in Moscow at the end of 1918, he was appointed a member of the collegium of the Peoples Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. Soon after, he was sent to Stockholm, where he made a peace offer to all countries, but met with no response. On his return to Moscow he resumed work in the Foreign Commissariat, a year later going to Copenhagen, where he concluded treaties for the exchange of war prisoners with Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Hungary and Denmark. This was the beginning of the establishment of actual relations between Soviet Russia and foreign countries. He was appointed first Soviet envoy to Esthonia in 1920, but was there for only a few months when he was called to Moscow to take up the post of Assistant Peoples Commissar of Foreign Affairs. In 1930 he was appointed Peoples Commissar of Foreign Affairs. It was mainly due to his diplomatic skill that Russia was brought into the League of Nations. Sir Harry McGowan.

Sir Harry McGowan, chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries, is shortly to visit Australia and New Zealand. He was born in Glasgow in June, 1874, and is deputy-chairman of the Finance Company of Great Britain and America, Limited; deputy-chairman of African Explosives and Industries, Ltd.; director of the Midland Bank; advisory director of the Overseas Bank; director of General Motors Corporation, New York : president of the Society of Chemical Industry. Australian Immigration. The refusal of the authorities in Australia to allow Mrs. Freer to land has drawn attention to the Australian immigration laws. The primary reason for the Australian immigration laws, with its dictation test “in any prescribed language,” is to restrict the entry of Asiatics, in accordance with the ‘’White Australia” policy. But Commonwealth officials are empowered to exclude from Australia certain other classes of immigrants whose presence in the community would have an injurious effect upon its welfare. These include anyone' suffering from a physical or mental infirmity, or who from any other reason is likely to become an economic burden upon the community: anyone who has within three years been convicted of an offence (not being a mere political offence), and has been imprisoned for one year or longer therefor and has not received a pardon. The Act further prohibits the entrance of immigrants under contract or an agreement to perform manual labour within the Commonwealth except (a) crews of coasting vessels employed at the ruling rate of wages; (b) persons exempted by the Minister as possessing special skill needed in Australia. Though the provision for a language test in the Act was couched in general terms, it was definitely stated by more than one Prime Minister that European immigrants would not be subjected to it. Providing they satisfied the medical authorities and were not contract immigrants, the entry of most Europeans into Australia was unrestricted until about 12 years ago. Maltese and Italians Mere the first to come under the ban. Navy Versus Aircraft. Sir Thomas Inskip, Minister for Coordination of Defence, said in a speech in the House of Commons, that he was not going to admit that the Navy had met in aircraft an opponent which it could not master. Brigadier-General P. R. (X Groves, in his book “Behind the Smoke Screen,” says: “The position to-day is that while it is to the Navy that we must continue to look for pie safety of our commerce on the high seas and for the principal means of co-operation in Dominion and colonial defence, we can no longer regard it as England’s sure shield. For it cannot protect this country [England] from devastation by aerial bombardment Equally certain it is that failing adequate national air defence, the Navy can neither blockade nor bombard an enemy capable of serious aerial reprisals upon Great Britain. Nor, again, can the Fleet, by itself, ensure the delivery of our sea-borne food supplies since, if we lack adequate air defence, our merchant shipping will be sunk wholesale by aerial attack both in home waters and in port. There is no justification for the claim, that this could be prevented by anti-aircraft guns either on shore or afloat. Nor is it true that the Navy could by this means defend the bases upon which its own efficiency is absolutely dependent. ... I believe that no single aeroplane was shot down over London in the course of the entire war, although the number of anti-aircraft guns was continually increased until by November, 1918 it totalled 480.... The Germans lost altogether but 4.8 per cent, of the aeroplanes sent to raid England during the Avar, including losses due to forced landings. ... In the London air manoeuvres of August 10, 1928, the attacking force of 75 machines, which was estimated to have dropped a totai of 22 tons of bombs, escaped without a casualty”