DEEMED "RIDICULOUS"

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 63, 16 March 1933, Page 11

DEEMED "RIDICULOUS"

LONDON, March 15.

It is understood that the British Ambassador to.Moscow, Sir Esmond Ovey, made strong representations to the Soviet authorities .about the secretiveness of the proceedings against the six representatives of the Metropolitan A rickers Electrical Company, Messrs. Monkhouse, Thornton, Cushy, ' MacDonald, Nordwall, and Gregory, who were arrested in Moscow. '

The Ambassador stated that the British Government was taking a seiions view of the case.

The Soviet Foreign Office then said that members of the Embassy would be allowed to visit the prisoners subject to representatives of the Soviet being present and no reference being made to motives of the arrest. Sir Esmond Ovey visited the Lubianka gaol and conversed with the four prisoners there. . He found them comfortable- and in- normal health.

Mr. Monkhouse, who has been released, states that he was questioned during the greater part of his fortyeight hours' detention, but no reference was made to espionage. The questions chiefly l-elated to alleged defects in machinery and supposedly faulty installation. Mr. Monkhouse says that "naturally during ten years spent in installing equipment in large power stations there have been troubles such as are unavoidable in any big job", but the charges of sabotage are ridiculous." The/ '■ Morning Post's" political correspondent says that it is expected that, an apology will shortly be forthcoming in the form of a statement that the arrests occurred without the .^knowledge of M. Litvinoff, Commissar of Foreign Affairs, who is taking steps to meet tho representations of the British Government.

The "Daily Mail" says: "The obvious meaning of these arbitrary arrests is that the Five-Year Plan has collapsed and a smoke-screen is being erected to conceal tho truth from the miserable and oppressed population of Russia, who are being made to believe that British treachery has caused their hardships, not the incapacity and dishonesty of tho Bolsheviks."