THE H.B TRIBUNE. THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1923. ANGLO-RUSSIAN CONVERSATIONS.”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 128, 17 May 1923, Page 4

THE H.B TRIBUNE. THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1923. ANGLO-RUSSIAN CONVERSATIONS.”

A reading of the “Notes” that have recently passed between the British Government and that of Russia wi’l give some idea of the difficulties that are in the way of coming to any satisfactory and reliable understanding with the Bolshevist rulers of that vast country. They are evidently “a law unto themselves, ’’ and have a fine disregard for all the written and unwritten laws that are recognised and, in a general, way, observed among the. other European nations. In this lies the danger of entering into discussions and negotiations with them, for it is quite impossible to find a common basis upon which to proceed. An instance of this is found in the attitude adopted with /regard to the seizure of British trawlers off the Murmansk eoast, on the margin <if the Arctic Ocean. There was no question whatever as to these fishing boats really operating well outside the three-mile limit, that has for centuries been accepted as the extent of national control over the open seas. Yet they were seized without notice of any kind and (he men on board were cast into prison. In response to the British protest against such a high-handed offence against established international law the Russian Government states, as if a quite sufficient apology, that it is “willing to participate in an international conference on the problems of territorial waters.” The “incidents” of the imprisonment and, in one case, the “execution” of British subjects on quite insufficient grounds are, of course, of a much more serious character, but do not, perhaps, provide as clear evidence of Russia’s utter contempt for the rules that govern international relations.

Having regard to even the cases that have been made public—there are evidently numberless others —in which the Soviet Government has shown itself as quite outside the pale of civilised international conduct, it cannot but be admitted that the British Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs had good ground for saying that the British Government had acted “with extraordinary patience”—a patience, indeed, that verges very closely upon submission. The strange thing, however, is to find in the British Parliament men of leading who, in the face of all this, are constituting themselves virtual apologists for the Russian Government. Among them we have, for instance, Mr. Ramsay Macdqnald, who finds it in him to excuse the murder of Russian clerics on the ground that “in times of revolution political punishment and religious persecution are sometimes mixed.” Then we have Mr. Lloyd George pleading for “restraint” oh some-

thing of the same grounds, and for the ‘‘re-establishment of some sort of Anglo-Russian understanding on foreign policy,” apparently brushing aside the proofs already given that, for the Soviet Government, -there is no sanctity whatever in such understandings. In his case, of course, he is seeking to justify the “Trade Agreement” now in question, into which he entered with Lenin some two years or more ago in the face of widespread public dissent and with only the reluctant assent of the Unionist members of Ihe National Cabinet. The observance of the terms of that agreement has been entirely on the one side, much to the advantage of Lenin and his friends in the way of gaining them outside recognition as a government in being, assisting them to maintain their control of affairs, and to spread their revolutionary propaganda in British territory. In relation to the British complaint of the Russian failure to observe the stipulation, contained in this agreement, that such propaganda should cease it is worth while quoting what was said in the “Morning Post” at the time the pact was signed—this, if for no other reason, because it probably disclosed in advance the line of defence which the Bolshevist Government will now eventually adopt on this feature of the British protest. The position, as there briefly stated, was that the propaganda organisations in Britain and her dependencies were ostensibly conducted not by the Soviet Government, but by the executive of the Third (Communist) International. “The clause in the Trade Agreement concerning propaganda,” said the “Post,” “does not appear to apply operations of the Third International ; and no doubt the Government’s advisers overlooked the fact that the Soviet Government and the Third International aie one and indivisible. The undertaking given bj’ the Soviet will not affect in the least the activities of the organisations in this country that are part of he Third International. These organisations, by the terms of affiliation, are pledged to constant propaganda. ‘ln the columns of the press, in public meetings, in trade unions, in co-operative societies, and wherever the partisans of the Third International have access, they must stigmatise mercilessly and systematically not only the bourgeoisie, but also their accomplices, the reformists of all shades.’ ” Taking, too, merely the economic point of view, it may be asked what present value there can possibly be in preserving trade relations with a country which is in such a condition as is disclosed in the letter of a Czecho-Slovakian trade union mission? r of mercy to-Russia’s famineridden people, extracts f/om which will be found in another column of this issue.