SOVIET TRIAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 107, 19 April 1933, Page 8

SOVIET TRIAL

VISHINSKY’S ADDRESS FINDINC OF SOVIET EXPERTS. ENGLISHMEN NOT MENTIONED. LONDON, April 18. “The Times’ ’’ Riga correspondent emphasises that Vlshinsky completely ignored the reports of the Soviet’s own investigating commissions that the breakdowns In Moscow, Ivanovo, Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk and other electrical stations were due to mismanagement, bad transport and scarcity of skilled labour, which constantly caused serious damage at the Moscow stations. The correspondent adds: “None of the Soviet’s reports mentions foreign engineers or wilful wrecking as the cause of the damage.” The “Daily Mail” says: “The Independent Labour Party, which has proclaimed support for tho Soviet against its own countrymen, dishonours itself at a moment when Moscow is giving the world an object lesson in what Soviet justice means.” The “Morning Post” says: “The Soviet’s wanton outrage of our subjects could only have been devised with one object—namely, in order to pick a quarrel and use it as an excuse to repudiate inconvenient debts. Under the export-guarantee system we incurred a liability of £7,000,000 in order to encourage Anglo-Russian trade. This is likely to become a bad debt. It will, however, bo some compensation to know that it ends the arrangement to use British money and credit to bolster up and strengthen an avowed enemy.” "NOT TO BE SHOCKED.' 1 THORNTON’S MESSAGE TO WIFE. LONDON, April 18. Thornton's wife has received through the Foreign Office her husband’s sersonal cryptic message warning her “not to be shocked” at the result of tho trial. The message added: ”t little doubt that my punishment will be the severest of all the Englishmen’s.” He asks his wife to be brave, but says ho cannot stand the agony of awaiting his sentence much longer.