BOLSHEVIK ASSURANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18827, 30 September 1924, Page 7

BOLSHEVIK ASSURANCE.

TREATY .WITH BRITAIN

DANGER OF RATIFICATION.

DESCRIBED AS SACRIFICE. COMPENSATION WANTED. NO HELP TO NEIGHBOURS. MACDONALD AND LOAN. By Telocraph— Association—Copyright(Received 7.55 p.m.) A. and N.Z.—Sun. LONDON. Sept. 28. A message from Riga states that the Soviet leaders, the official press and Communists generally, are now expressingfears that the treaty with Britain is full of grave dangers for the Soviet. They therefore deem it to be necessary to most carefully consider whether its ratification would be really expedient. The Russians particularly object to paragraph 16, which prohibits anti-Brit-ish propaganda.

Tho newspaper Pravda says: "This paragraph deprives the Soviet Government of its only weapon against British Imperialism, because it prohibits our educational work among enslaved nations. For such a far-reaching sacrifice the Soviet must demand substantial compensation from Britain."

Indicating tho nature of this suggested compensation the Pravda says that Britain must definitely guarantee to cease participation, even indirectly, in supplying the Soviet's neighbours, especially Rumania and Poland, cither with money or munitions. It adds: Britain's mere expressed intention to ' abstain from such hostile acts will not do. It must he supported by concrete measures, otherwise it cannot be considered as equivalent to tho sacrifice demanded from us.

" The Soviet leaders are urged to weigh these considerations carefully, and approach the ratification of the treaty warily."

The Morning Post states that the strong opposition to the Russian Treaty has resulted in tho Prime Minister, Mr, Ramsay Mac Donald, initiating conversations by means of which Russian and British financial experts will define tha amount the Soviet is willing to hand over to British claimants, which must satisfy 50 per cent, of tho bond-holders. The new treaty will include the British Government's undertaking to guarantee the interest and sinking fund of a £50,000,000 loan, of which two-thirds is to be left in England in payment for goods ordered in Britain.

Tho Parliamentary correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says the House of Commons cannot be tested until November in reference to the ratification of the treaty, which tho Government has decided to make a question of confidence.

As instancing tho fight which the Labour Party is patting up in support of the British treaty with Russia, the Daily Herald says that the Independent Labour Party alone held 400 pro-treaty meetings throughout' tho country during the past week-end.

Denouncing the treaty between Britain and the Soviet, the Times, in a recent leading article, said that to recognise the Soviet Government was not to recognise Russia nor to enter into closer and friendlier relations with the Russian people. It was not a recognition of a foreign State, but simply a formal recognition of the revolutionary principle, and the admission of this principle into Britain's own sphere of political ideas. "The Government has lightly played into tho hands of the Bolsheviks." said the Times. "If this impossible treaty is rejected, the occasion will doubtless be seized for a new and more violent outbreak of Bolshevik hostility against the Empire. If it is accepted, that hostility will not diminish. On the contrary, it will be expressed in subtler and more dangerous forms." The article added that Mr. Mac Donald had not made his pact with the Russian people, but with a clique of unscrupulous adventurers whose power was maintained solely by the use of treachery, guile, demoralisation and murder.