TRADE RELATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1927, Page 10

TRADE RELATIONS

DEBATE IN COMMONS

SHARP CRITICISM

, (Received -Ith March, 1.30 p.m.)

LONDON, 3rd March,

On the Civil Service vote Sir A. H. Sinclair (Lib.) moved to reduce the Foreign Secretary's salary in order to draw attention to Anglo-Eussian relations. He pointed out that British trade in Russia during the past three years had been £31,000,000, £44,000,000, and £38,000,000 respectively. It was impossible to stop propaganda by rebukes or force. The maintenance of trade relations was gradually and steadily undermining Bolshevism in Eussia and producing a revival, but the severance of relations would plunge us into isolation, and it would ruin a substantial trade and the peace of Europe. Sir Austen Chamberlain, in dispatching his Note, had been torn between his own better judgment and the dictates of the Conservative "diehards."

Sir Austen Chamberlain said that a verbal acceptance would not be enough. Acts must show whether there was going to.be redress for the long series of outrages. The Government reserved the right to judge the expediency and time of any further steps. "We thought it right to take ■ the world to witness the serious nature of our complaints and to give the Soviet another opportunity to conform to the ordinary rules of international life and conduct," he said.

Mr. Lloyd George condemned Ministers' speeches against a Government with whicn we had official relations. An attempt should be made by tho representatives of both countries to solve the difficulties. This might not mean a new agreement; it might mean a now spirit.

Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson said that Britain's Note belonged to a long brood of brothers all of Which Were stillborn. It announced worldwide the degree of humiliation that the Empire was ready to swallow lying down. The Soviet's reply did not contain either apology or contrition. It was an amalgam of insultj invasion, and further humiliation. He advocated a "big stick and a bigger boot for tho anthropoid apes of the Bolshevik jungle."

Mr. Philip Siiowden said that an Anglo-Russian breach would only encourage Communist propaganda, which he detested. Let Sir Austen Chamberlain try to open a new chapter of Anglo-Russian relations. Russia would be reasonable, because without outside help the Russian economic system would break down.

The motion was defeated by 271 votes to 14(5.