CHARGES BY M.P.

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 138, 8 December 1945, Page 8

CHARGES BY M.P.

RUSSIAN DOMINANCE OF POLAND

ECONOMIC -STRANGLE-HOLD ! (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyriaht.) jßec. 10.40 a.m. LONDON, Dec. 7.

' The Russians' dominance of Poland | and the impenetrable screen of secrecy | with which Russia had surrounded all • the areas under her control was pret j venting the restoration of decent coh- ; ditions for the Polish people and disi couraging the return to Poland of

exiles who were at present unwilling

to leave their havens in free countries, ;aid Admiral E. A. Taylor (Conservative), in raising the subject in the House of Commons on a motion for >he adjournment.

He said that Russia was economicilly strangling Poland ,by systematic poliation. .Arrests and deportations )t members of the Polish anti-German underground movement continued. The Russians were using pits 60 yards quare and six feet deep as.concentra,ion camps. An enormous number of Polish women had been raped. There .vas no freedom of the Press or of peech. He appealed to the British Jovernment to persuade Russia to •emedy this deplorable state of affairs.

Mr. J. Paton (Labour), while deploring the Conditions and events which Admiral Taylor described, pointed out that Poland was the key to Russia's security system of buffer States, and said that Russia was justified in organising this system as long las the accepted standards of contemporary civilisation were approved. The practice of. nationalism and the events !of the last 25 years had given the Russians ample grounds for suspicion. Adj miral Taylor should remember that j i precisely similar criticisms were being j I levelled at Britain for the conditions !in Greece, and also that the present Polish Government was more representative than Colonel Beck's pre-war system. Mr. J. D. Mack (Labour) said he had never listened to a greater farago of nonsense than he had heard from Admiral Taylor. It was time someone had the courage to speak up about Poles who frequented London during the war. Mr. Mack said that in the bars the Poles patronised in London there could be seen enough anti-Rus-sian propaganda to bring about a greater war than had just been endured. OFFICIAL LACK OF EVIDENCE. Mr. Hector McNeil, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office, replying; for the Government, said that Britain had accepted assurances from Mr. Molotov about the number of troops in Poland. The Russians were there for good reasons, and they were maintaining' order. Britain would continue to conduct normal observations on their disposition. If the numbers were excessive Britain would remonstrate, but only if she had evidence. No evidence had been offered which the' Government should be asked to examine. It was untrue, he said, to convey the impression that an iron curtain of secrecy existed. There was some sort of Press control, but British correspondents were given reasonable facilities.

l Mr. McNeil admitted that concentration camps existed and contained prisoners who were held mostly for political reasons. He also admitted that he was quite certain there had been misbehaviour by soldiers of the Red Army, but he said he could not commit himself to such excessive certainty as Admiral Taylor had shown in making the charges. ■Mr. McNeil added that he considered it wise that the Polish elections should continue to be deferred until conditions returned to normal and while considerable numbers of Poles remained outside Poland. Britain honed without thought of reward, to help and encourage the Polish Government to bring Poland back to some kind of stabiltiy. Britain would continue to note irregularities, but not in the frame of mind that everything that was wrong in Poland must be the fault of Russia. The bringing up of arguments from minds which were poisoned against Russia would not advance the cause of Poland.