Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1924. "SAVE ME FROM MY FRIENDS"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 97, 21 October 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1924. "SAVE ME FROM MY FRIENDS"

We publish to-day a letter in which Mr. W. Nash,- the secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party, replies to our criticism of the cable message sent by the party a few days ago to the Labour Party of Great Britain. The letter is of great length, but the task of replying is fortunately lightened by the-fact that it is in a large measure irrelevant. Our correspondent defends the attitude of the British Labour Party—an attitude which was not attacked in our article, and which" we have consistently defend- j ed against thel attacks made upon it in' the interests of the Domin- j ions. In far stronger terms than j he employs, we have always objected to pleading "the Empire \ spirit" in favour of the interests of the colonial producer against the interests, or the supposed interests, of the millions of needy consumers in Great Britain. Our withers are therefore unwrung and our sense of humour pleasantly tickled by this part of Mr. Nash's letter. The same remark applies to his general eulogy of the Labour Government's foreign policy. It is here that his letter attains its climax of unconscious humour, for he actually quotes against us an article from the '" Daily News " which we ourselves had quoted in Mr. Mac Donald's favour only two days previously !" At the same time we had quoted two far more striking testimonials than any which Mr. Nash had at his command— those, namely, of the " Daily Express" .and the " Saturday Review"—which, as coming from much' more hostile sources, were entitled to proportionately greater weight. The reference in the same article to Mr. Mac Donald's work at' the London Conference was the following :->- The most brilliant of his successes was achieved in a field where all of his predecessors since the war had siena-llv failed. ' . J For future use the secretary of the Labour Party might add this to his list of testimonials, crediting it to a hostile authority, if he is so minded, but whether he likes it or not, to the " Evening Post " of the 16th October. While these points demand an apology from our critic rather than any defence from us, a defence on what is really the most important count in his indictment was put into our hands almost simultaneously with the ; document itself. " Save us from our friends!" is a prayer from which- those who attempt to render any service to the Soviet Republics of Russia are in constant need. In the abstract and on general principles, and from the safe distance of ten thousand miles, cosmopolitan benevolence and class-conscious philanthropy' find them an attractive mark, but if the veil which theory and sentiment and distance combine to interpose is once torn aside facts are apt to be revealed which are highly disconcerting to their champions. A very awkward thing for the MacDonald Government was the reception which greeted their Treaty in Russia and the disclosure of the manner in which it was put through. It is still more unpleasant for them that in an election campaign, turning in large measure on this very Treaty, their Russian friends should be making other embarrassing revelations. And for the New Zealand Labour Party it is unfortunate that the same day which brought word from London of Mr. Mac Donald's receipt of their congratulations on his " masterly handling .of foreign affairs," and brought' us their secretary's elaborate defence of the weakest spot in those congratulations, should also have brought from Moscow a message which makes our demolition of this defence an easy ,task. Where we might have failed unaided M. Zinovieff has achieved a complete success. The substance of the objection which we took to the Anglo-Rus-sian Treaty in Saturday's leading article was that it represented a victory for the Reds in Moscow engineered by their Red friends in London. What' light does "Ttf. Zinovieff, whose mana now appears to stand almost as high in Russia as that of Lenin or Trotsky, throw upon our contention 1 A few months ago M. Trotsky declared that "the Mac Donald Cabinet has absolutely no principles." "As the ground of his attack was that "the British proletariat would find more gold in the British banks than we found in the Russian banks," yet the Government had not principle enough to steal it, the censure was accepted as a compliment outside Soviet-ridden Russia. M. Zinovieff now comes along with a compliment to the British Government which, beyond the same limits, will be generally regarded as a far more deadly censure than any that the Liberals or Conservatives have been able to pronounce. The substance of the remarkable speech which was cabled from Moscow yesterday was as follows :— M. Zinovieff expressed the Bolsheviks' heartfelt .desire for the continiiiince of Mr. SlucDonald's Administration, because it .whs under (lie pressuro of revolutionary Labour He asserted that Mr. Mac Donald's so-called followers forced him to sign the BiiEKian

Ziuovieff declared that it was now unnecessary to send agitators abroad, because enemies like Mac Donald had become their best agitators. . . . Mr. MacDonald was now fighting with hia back to the wall, and must find serious arguments in favour of Bolshevism, and willy-nilly plead the Moscow cause to defend Campbell. We have not such an admiration for the Soviet leader as to be willing to take every word that he says as gospel, but as to the unofficial extremist pressure to which j he declares the British Government to have succumbed it must be remembered that the reports which were originally published in Mos-' cow have'since been substantially confirmed in Glasgow and London. A point of perhaps greater importance is the proof which M. Zinovieff's outburst affords of the utter futility of the diplomacy which has aroused the enthusiasm of the New Zealand Labour Party. . The effect upon Russia of a Treaty which, as! we shall endeavour to show in a future article, is worthy of the influences that put it through,-is not to promote the goodwill, good ..faith, and mutual respect upon which.the ultimate settlement depends. Hatred, contempt, and malicious and dishonest exultation are, on the contrary, the emotions which this masterpiece of the_ British Reds has inspired in their dear Russian friends.