Russian Atrocities

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 31, 1 August 1923, Page 15

Russian Atrocities

' "In three years, prisons, with a maximum holding capacity of 107;000, have been made to hold over 180,000; ' 2,180 executions after sentence of death; 1,299 shot without sentence of death; innumerable cases of torture iin prison, resulting in three years of 160 suicides; 74,000 persons expelled under just'the sole order of the Government, and in four years 406 editors "condemned to prison and 1,085 periodicals suppressed. That is a hideous state of affairs. No question about that. But the YEARS I AM REFERRING TO ARE NOT RECENT : YEARS, but from 1905 to 1908. And these figures, unlike the atrocities quoted to-day from the Bolshevists, are authentic reports produced by the Duma and got from the information of the officials themselves. Why in those days was there no indignation? Why was no popular indignation aroused; and why were there no long descriptions in the Conservative press of these awful horrors? There are two reasons. Tsardom was accepted as a reasonable form of Government, and there was a great movement for the development of Russia, In order to allow British capital to flow into Russia to be invested in that country, and the great business people did not want that to be disturbed. The result was that there was not a word said by the Tory Party in this House or by the Tory press in the country. It was only a few of us in this House ever raised the matter, and we wera told in those days that we ought not to interfere with the inernal affairs of another nation. Why all this indignation now? It Is the most shameless hypocrisy. It is really indignation merely used as a cloak for political animosity against a particular form of government."— A. Ponsonhy, M.P., in British House of Commons, May 15, 1923.