Manawatu Daily Times MONDAY, MAY 14, 1923. BRITAIN’S ULTIMATUM TO RUSSIA.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2645, 14 May 1923, Page 4

Manawatu Daily Times MONDAY, MAY 14, 1923. BRITAIN’S ULTIMATUM TO RUSSIA.

England’s worries crowd one upon the other with exasperating persistency. A few weeks ago she was wrestling desperately with the Turks in an endeavour to preserve her prestige and prevent war. France’s apparent determination to grind Germany under her spurred heel till she is either irrevocably ruined or driven to open conflict presents a problem of peculiar and baffling difficulty to British statesmanship. Then on the heels of these and other hardly less worrying internal and external troubles comes the threatened break with Russia—with all the possibilities of a costly and far-reaching conflict. Relations between Soviet Russia and Mr Bonar Law’s "tranquillity” Government are strained to breaking point. An ultimatum has been issued, compliance with which must be made within a week, the alternative being the complete severance of all relations. It is not quite clear what the actual extent of the provocation has been, but apparently the sudden exhibition of strength on tho part of Britain is the result of a long series of aggravations. Tho Note mentions hostile propaganda in the East, attacks on British subjects, and generally refers to the provocative attitude of the Soviet, which seems to have settled into a fixed policy. One of the lead-

ing British newspapers to-day suggests that the trade agreement between Britain and the Soviet is of ■sufficient value to Russia to make her alter any policy that would end in the breaking of that agreement. This may or may not be so, but it nevertheless remains a fact that one of the conditions of the establishment of the agreement was that Russia should refrain from doing those things which she is now accused of doing. With some of the demands in this Note, history goes back further than the trade agreement. There is mention of a murder in January, 1920. The imiprisonment of Mrs Stan Harding oc.curred in the same year. This second j case has received a great amount of I'publicity. Mrs Harding, a British subject, gained admittance to Russia as the accredited correspondent of an American paper. She admits she went there inclined to be sympathetic toward the Bolshevik regime. Her experiences effected in her a complete conversion. She was detained, without trial, in some of the most noisome prisons in Moscow. She was informed of tier condemnation to death for ‘‘espionage in war time,” the only alternative being release on condition that she disclosed the secrets of an alleged British intelligence system in Russia. Knowing nothing of any such system, she was detained a matter of months, sometimes in solitary confinement, sometimes, as tho fruits of hunger striking, in company with other prisoners guilty of real or fancied crimes. Her release was one of the conditions precedent to Britain signing the trade agreement. The story of her experiences is not given at second-hand, but in her own words with full detail. All this happened to an Englishwoman who entered Soviet territory with a special safe conduct. The agreement, however, contained no undertaking that Russia would compensate her, or any other British subject. This matter was to be deferred until the signing

of a general treaty of peace—which has not yet been signed. The cases of the British trawlers will be fresh in mind, because of the seizure of the James Johnson. This vessel was operating outside the three-mile limit, •but the Soviet Government claimed that its jurisdiction extended to 12 miles from the shore. In the stipulation for the cessation of propaganda and hostile acts, the British Note is based on an undertaking with which the trade agreement of 1921 deals specifically. The preamble to the document required that the Soviet authorities should cease from propaganda, especially in the East, with special mention of Afghanistan and India. Simultaneously with its signature, Sir Robert Horne handed to the Russian representative a letter in which there was described with great particularity the manner in which Soviet agents—all of whom were named—had been endeavouring 'to stir up disaffection among the frontier tribes of India. These were the activities which, it was must cease. It is evident there has been no cessation. To these provocative acts arc added numerous comparatively minor sources of trouble, and the Note significantly concludes with a reference to Britain’s monumental patience once again being misinterpreted as an admission of weakness.