Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1929. BRITISH RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 228, 26 August 1929, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1929. BRITISH RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA.

Mr Arthur Henderson’s statement in the House of Commons on July 7th, outlining the conditions under which diplomatic relations with Russia are to be resumed, was, according to London papers, responsible for a serious disclosure by Sir Austen Chamberlain of Moscow’s intrigues in India. The British Foreign Secretary insisted that the Prime Minister (Mr Ramsay MacDonald) had made it clear that the Government would not tolerate any form of propaganda which interfered with the. internal affairs of Great Britain or the Dominions. No hostile propaganda was (Mr Henderson said) to be tolerated, and he expressed the opinion that “Moscow, benefiting by past lessons, will furnish the most definite undertakings.” But Sir Austen Chamberlain very effectively dispelled the idea that Moscow had profited in the least degree by “past lessons,” or that it was likely to give any undertakings to refrain from such interferences in the domestic affairs of Britain or the Dominions, by quoting from a manifesto issued as recently as March 27th last by the Third Communist International, addressed to “proletarians” in general, and in particular to the “peasants” and “workers” of India, urging them to “get ready for the struggle of battle,” and “hasten to the line of fire,” against “British Imperialism, the robber and oppressor of India,” the British Socialist Government being scornfully alluded to as “reformist lackeys.” The effect of that manifesto has been painfully apparent. in the rioting and bloodshed witnessed in the streets of Bombay and other Indian cities, and in the bomb throwing outrages, which led to the Crown Prosecutor, in the trial at Meerut, declaring that Soviet Russia had “inspired, directed and controlled a formidable conspiracy against His Majesty’s Government m India.” Mr Henderson apparently accepts the Soviet disclaimer, made by Stalin, that it is not responsible for the doings of the Third International; but, as the members of the Soviet Government, including Stalin himself, are members of the Third International, that -disclaimer counts for nothing, and it i s indisputable that Soviet agents have been stirring up mischief in India, Australia and other of the British Dominions, and in a very minor degree in this country also. Even while Mr Henderson was accepting this disclaimer the Soviet was insolently framing the conditions, upon which it was as-

serted the 1 Soviet Government would alone consent to the. resumption of diplomatic relationships with Britain. The conditions thus set forward were:—

“The British Government must pledge itself not to take part in any anti-Soviet negotiations, nor to repeat the Arcos episode, and not to rifle Soviet safes in broad daylight. “The Soviet Government also demands that the British diplomatic agents abroad shall cease from their criminal anti-Soviet activities, and it was further declared that “The Soviet Government does not play a diplomatic game, but lays its cards on the table and cannot see ■ the Socialist Government trying to mislead the working classes of Great Britain without registering a protest.”

The Moscow Pravda in a leadingl article on July 5 accused the British Socialist Government of “hypocrisy and falsehood,” and editorial articles in other Soviet papers “unanimously declared that Moscow would not agree to any preliminary negotiations to determine the conditions for resumption of diplomatic relations with Great Britain.”

MR HENDERSON’S ERROR

Mr Henderson blundered badly, however, when he stated that “according to his legal advisers, diplomatic relations with Russia had never been severed.” He also appeared to be out of touch with his leader’s statement on the subject in 1924. He corrected the former statement later on in the sitting, by reading the text of the opinion handed to him by his legal advisers, which explained that: “What the rupture of 1927 did was to suspend the normal machinery for diplomatic relations. It is that machinery which now requires to be re-established.” In regard to Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s statement (Mr MacDonald being then Minister of Foreign Affairs as also Prime Minister) that gentleman, writing to M. Rakovsky, Charge d’Affaires of the Soviet Union, on the 24th October, 1924, said:—

“No one who understands the constitution and relationships of the Communist International will doubt its intimate connection and contact with the Soviet Government. No Government will ever tolerate an arrangement with a foreign Government by which the former is in formal diplomatic relations of a correct kind with it, while at the same time a propagandist body, organically connected with that foreign Government, encourages and even orders subjects of the former to plot and plan revolutions for its overthrow. Such conduct is hot only a grave departure from the rules of international comity but a violation of specific and solemn undertakings repeatedly given to His Majesty’s Government.”

Mr Henderson, however, told the House of Commons that tlie Government bad no responsibility for anything that may be issued by the Third International, “We have no contact (he added) with the Third International and we have no associations with it.” But if the British Government is not responsible for the Third International, the Soviet Government is, and to resume diplomatic relations with that body in face of the happenings of the last few years is simply to afford further opportunities for the Communist International to carry on its subversive activities with redoubled energy against Great Britain and the Empire.