Minister in Moscow Has Modest Legation: Few Diplomatic Duties

Evening Star, Issue 26137, 26 June 1947, Page 8

Minister in Moscow Has Modest Legation: Few Diplomatic Duties

(From Reuter’s Moscow Correspondent.) (By Air Mail.) A modest pre-revolutionary dwelling, showing signs of genteel decay at 21 Metrostroyevskaya, about five minutes' drive from the Kremlin, houses the Legation of New Zealand in the Soviet Union. New Zealand’s Minister, Mr C. W. Boswell, established the Legation nearly three years ago. He presides there with a tiny staff of three Legation secretaries over the official relationships, mostly of a cultural or informative nature, between New Zealand and the U.S.S.R. “ We do not have a great deal of diplomatic negotiations with the Soviet Government,” Mr Boswell said, but our relations with them have always been excellent. We have always been on the best of terms. Our exchanges have been along cultural or scientific rather than diplomatic lines.

Only Cultural Relations

Trade between the two countries is practically zero, and as far as the Legation is aware there are no New Zealand nationals in the Soviet Union to look to the Legation for assistance or protection. In these circumstances the relationship for the past three years has been confined mainly to mutual exchanges of filrtis and books, and new industrial or agricultural developments of interest to the two' peoples, “ We feel that as a result of these exchanges the people of New Zealand are beginning to get a better understanding of the Soviet Union. The Russians on their part accept quite readily the material we have sent them on cultural developments, progress of New Zealand youth, and, other similar material,” Air Boswell said. “ It may be because we’ve not engaged in much diplomatic business that Our relationships remain so uniformly good,” he-added smilingly. “Soviet opinion of New Zealand and New Zealanders is high—at least, in many instances, higher than the regard they hold for other parts of the Commonwealth. Our country has in several instances found itself m the same lobbies as the Russians on international matters.” STALIN PRAISES M.Z.E.F. “ New Zealand’s war effort also commanded considerable respect here. The Russians had a high opinion of the Bth Armyls New Zealand division, as they’ve made clear to us more than once. Stalin himself told me: ‘ All the world knows of the gallantry of New Zealand’s soldiers.’ ” The Legation’s second secretary, Air Desmond P. Costello, came to his post from the New Zealand Division, in which he served as intelligence officer during the campaigns across Lybia, Cyrenaica, Tunisia, and Italy. He is now Air Boswell’s principal assistant. The former first secretary, Air R. G. T. Patrick, recently returned to New Zealand to take the

post of head of the Department of Island Territories. • The Minister and Mr Costello arrived to open the Legation in Moscow in; August, 1944, during some of the tensest days of the war. “We had an idea we might Open up in our own premises in a matter of two weeks or so," Mr Boswell said. “ What happened was that we spent the next 20 months living in a hotel. We moved into this Legation exactly a year ago. But we rinoerstood the difficulties involved in Settling us, in view of the war arid the crowded condition of Moscow,” NOT MUCH ENTERTAINING. •In comparison with other, Legations and Embassies, the New Zealand Legation is fairly modest. The lower floor of. the 10-room establishment is used for chancery , offices, the upper floors for residence. “As you can see, that doesn’t leave us much room for entertaining," Mr Boswell remarked. Besides the numerous books and pamphlets on the Soviet Union which find interest in New Zealand, the Legation has arranged several specific exchances on scientific information, most interesting of which from the New Zealand point of view was the visit to Russia last year of a New Zealand scientist studying Russian methods of artificial insemination. Despite its small staff and brief existence, the Legation has already fostered orie romance. The two third secretaries, still listed on many Moscow diplomatic lists as Mr D. W. Lake and Miss Ruth Mary Macky, are How Mr and Mrs D. W. Lake. Lake came to the Legation as a clerk direct from Service with the New Zealand Division in Italy. His home is in Christchurch. His promotion to secretarial status came after he had been in the Legation here for some time. Miss Macky, who comes from Auckland, is the Legation archivist. The couple were married last December in Dublin after the close of the Paris conference, at which Mrs Lake ’ was attached to the New Zealand conference staff.