ATTITUDE NOT CHANGED.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2030, 17 August 1920, Page 11

ATTITUDE NOT CHANGED.

BRITAIN AND RUSSIA. A WARNING TO LABOUR. COERCION WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. By Cable. — Prrtt Association. — Copyriyht. lit liter's Teleurams. v Hcp. Auk- IT, 1.10) LONDON, Au e . 16. In the House of Commons, Mr Pemherton Billing drew attention to the Labour resolutions threatening a general strike in the event of military measures being taken against Russia. He described these resolutions as tantamount to a Labour dictatorship under the name of a Council of Action. He asked if the time had not ■come to terminate the organisation of industrial disturbances for the purpose of achieving political ends. The Bt. Hon. D. Lloyd George said the Government's policy appeared in nowise to suffer from the Labour Conference.

This swing of the sledgehammer at an open door was only intended for display. Any attempt to dictate a policy to the Government or Parliament by industrial action would strike at the root of the democratic constitution of Great Britain, and would be resisted with all the forces at the Government's disposal. The Bt. Hon. A. Bonar Law, in moving the adjournment until October 19, with a provision that it might be convened earlier if desirable, said nothing had occurred since the last adjournment, except what appeared in the newspapers. The Government's policy regarding the PolishRussian question had been laid down in the clearest possible manner by the Prime Minister.

There was not the slightest foundation for the suggestion that the policy had been altered by any expression of public opinion or by the action of the body calling itself the Council of Action. There had not been the slightest deviation from the beginning in the British attitude towards the Polish-Russian War. He stated that the Government's message to the British representative in Warsaw for conveyance to the Poles laid it down that Great Britain would not interfere if the Russian terms were genuine, and if it went no further than that. The message was communicated simultaneously to the Allies,N, and the Italian Government telegraphed its entire approval of the step taken.