RELATIONS WITH SOVIET

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 5 December 1929, Page 7

RELATIONS WITH SOVIET

LATE EDITION

EXCHANGE OF AMBASSADORS (HOUSE OF LORDS’ DISCUSSION GOVERNMENT’S POLICY EXPLAINED. British Official Wireless. Received 1 p.m. to-day. RUGBY, Dec. 4. The resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia was the subject of a debate in the House of Lords initiated bv Lord Birkenhead, who called attention to recent Soviet revolutionary propaganda, and invited a statement of the policy of the Government and moved a resolution, that the resumption of relations at present was undesirable. Lord Thomson (Air Minister), replying, said that the policy of the Government was to resume normal diplomatic relations with Russia with the least possible delay and at the same time to safeguard British interests not only in this country but also throughout the world. The Government hoped to contribute to the maintenance of world peace and to expand British trade. It was the Government’s -view that relations with the Soviet Government should never have been broken off. The policy of refusing relations because they could not accept the promises of the Soviet Government was a policy of despair; it would mean that the present state of affairs would continue indefinitely. Ambassadors had ■not yet been exchanged, and a pledge regarding propaganda had not yet been given. The Government had not renounced and would not renounce its right to take any measure thev might think necessary to check foreign subversive propaganda from whatever source it might emanate. Lord Brentford asked whether, in the face of that declaration, if propaganda. continued either in Britain or in the Empire instigated by the Russian Government, their envoy wouldbe sent out again. Lord Thomson: If it is instigated by the Russian Government most certainly. Lord Birkenhead, Including the Third International ° Lord Thomson: Yes.

Continuing, Lord Thomson said that he did not want to leave the impression that the propaganda would cease as if by magic. It could not in the nature of things with a. body like the Third 1 International. Regarding the argument that relations should not he resumed with a country where atrocities and executions had taken .place, he said that the Government did not condone the atrocities and regretted the executions, hut it believed that the resumption of relations with Russia would tend to diminish the system of executions and atrocities which still prevailed there. “We believe that it is in the best interests of our country to- resume relations. We believe that it is absolutely indispensable for the general peace of the world, and that is reason why the Government is undertaking its present policy,” he added. Lord Reading (Libera) approved the Government’s policy, as sound and wisp arid in the interests of real security for universal peace. He would have preferred to see an agreement definitely setting down the terms of relations that were to exist before an exchange of ambassadors, but he hoped that when conditions were laid down they would he as definite and precise as possible. The Archbishop of Canterbury drew attention to the attitude of the Soviet Government towards Christianity and all forms of religion, hut he had received information that- there was now a cessation of the more flagrant violations of the elementarv principles of justice. He believed there would be a greater chance of securing some alleviation of the difficult position of religious people in Russia if representations' could he made through the ordinary diplomatic means to the Soviet Government. DOMINIONS’ ATTITUDE. Received 2 o.m. to-day. LONDON, Dec. 4. Tn the House of Commons, asked whether the Commonwealth had intimated the conditions on which it would agree to. the Government‘,s»pplicy towards Russia, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies (Mr W. Lunn) said that he had heard nothing of the Commonwealth’s attitude in general. The Dominions had been kept fully olive of everything done and none had dissented.