CONDITIONS OF LABOUR

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 77, 10 March 1931, Page 8

CONDITIONS OF LABOUR

A KNOTTY PROBLEM. LONDON, January 20. On 11th December, Sir Hilton Young seat to the Prime Minister a sworn statement by three .Russian refugees concerning the deplorable conditions in tiie timber prison camps in North fiussia. Since then ' others have given testimony regarding the conditions. Sir Hilton Young invited Mr. MacDohald to say what action the Government proposed to take in the matter, and Mr. MacDonaid promised that he \Vould cause inquiries to be made. He has now replied as follows: — "Dear Hilton Young: 1 hav<? given very careful consideration, in consultation with the Government Departments concerned, to your letter of lltli December, 1 about conditions in the Soviet timber industry, and i can how answer the questions which you put to me. '' Your first question was whether action can be taken under the Foruign Prison-made Goods Act, 1897; to this 1 must repeat what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in the House of Commons on 25th Noverber and 3rd December —that action under the Act can be taken only if evident is produced that any particular consignment of goods has been niado or produced wholly or in part in a 'foreign prison.' and that such evidence must be sufficiently detailed and conslusive to satisfy the Commissioners of Customs and Excise that any action taken would be sustainable if challenged in a Court of Law. " The information supplied by you and others (and the evidence which has so far reached mo is not all of an adverse character) does not, I am advised, fulfil the requirements of the Act or afford a basis for action under the existing law. The information, in fa«et, suggests that tho'timber industry in Northern Russia, including, the felling, removing, sawing, and shipping, is at present carried on not only by means of convict labour and compulsory labour hut also by free labour. It would, therefore, be impossible to prove legally that any particular consignment of timber was made or produced in a 'foreign prison, gaol, house of correction, or penitentiary.' It is, 1 think, clear that the law, as it stands, does not give the Government the power which you wish it to exercise, and that therefore legislation would be necessary. I may also point out that the legislation would have to deal, even according to tho statements which you have supplied, not only with prison labour but with labour conditions in general, and would not only affect Eussia. ,

"This leads to your second question, whether His Majesty's Government propose to take steps which would have to be legislative steps—to put a stop to the trade in Russian timber spccificially named, or in timber produced under conditions of the same nature as those alleged to be prevalent in the Russian timber camps. A general prohibition extending the 'prison goods' provisions and making them more definite would require to be passed, setting up standards of general labour conditions. This would be a very serious step in view of world labour conditions, and, after careful consideration of its bearing on our commercial relations, T am not in present circumstances satisfied that puch a measure (the pnly one which would satisfv the humanitarian feeling stirred up by this anti-Soviet campaign > is practicable.—Yours very sincerely, J. Ramsay MacDonald."