The Daily News TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1930. RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1930, Page 8

The Daily News TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1930. RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA.

No surprise can be felt at Sir Austen Chamberlain’s attack upon the Home Labour Government for its rashness in signing in 1924 a new convention with Soviet Russia while it was in open revolt. ' He further contended that’ it was even more rash to sign another convention, with its further recognition of the Soviet, when the latter had not altered its attitude, and to resume diplomatic relations on an agreement which, at the time it was signed, the Labour Government’s Foreign Secretary must have known was being interpreted “in one sense.by himself and in another by the Soviet Government.” There can be no question as to the worthlessness of Russian promises and solemn undertakings. That was fully proved in 1924, and the Soviet authorities have not changed one iota since. Rather, as the events of the last three or four years have shown, they have gone from bad to worse. The pity of it is that Britain under the Labour Government has not only fallen an easy victim of the Soviet confidence trick but also deliberately ignored the result of its previous folly and become again enmeshed in the toils of the Moscow Communists. All that the Foreign Minister could reply to Sir Austen Chamberlain’s strictures was that Labour had the support of the Liberals on this matter at the last general election. That, as Mr. Henderson claims, there is “a big gulf” between the Conservatives and Labour on this Russian question is quite true, but the existence of that gulf should have proved to Labour the danger of the policy it pursued. The outburst of jubilation on the part of the Soviet Press in 1924 over the diplomatic victory achieved by its agents in London was quite sufficient to convince any unbiased person of Soviet duplicity, while the eventual and speedy rupture that folio wed duly marked the inevitable sequence of events. In 1926, -when the differences among the ruling clique in Russia reached an acute stage, the only subject upon which there was unanimity was hostility to Britain, the general strike in May of that year being hailed as “the beginning of a world revolution,” and the shadowy figures in Moscow became suddenly active. A quarter of a million pounds was offered the British trade unions, and a special newspaper called “Fight Like Devils” was produced under Trotsky, and a hope expressed that the excellent

equipment of the London Times might soon be producing a British Izvestia. It will also be remembered that neither effort nor money was spared by the Soviet organisation to foment hostility to Britain in China, nearly £1,000,000 being spent to further the Soviet campaign. In 1928 the banishment of Trotsky brought the troubles of Soviet factions to a head, but not to a close. As further evidence of Soviet double dealing it may be recalled that towards the peasants there was adopted a policy of alternating between the extremes of compulsion and concession. -They were granted subsidies to induce them to grow crops, and -when the crops were grown a “crop-dictator” was appointed to take such measures as he thought fit to ensure the supply of grain. Even Greece had to abrogate its commercial convention with the Soviet in consequence of . the illegal activities of the Soviet trade delegation in Athens. In 1929 the anti-religious campaign was strengthened by legislation, the usual “plots’’were alleged to be detected, the usual “bourgeoisie” put to death, and the output of world-revolution-ary propaganda was more plentiful than that of the factories. The resumption of relations with Britain under the Labour Government was hailed by the Soviet Press as a victory, in terms giving the. impression that the Soviet Government wo.uld put no brake on the anti-British propaganda of the Third Internationale. From a British point of view that resumption depended entirely on the solemn assurance of Mr. Henderson that such propaganda would cease,, yet it goes on as part of the world revolutionary policy of the Moscow Communists. That the British Liberals have upheld the Labour Government in its policy towards Russia demonstrates how far the mighty have fallen; they have practically sold th eh’ illustrous birth-right for a mess of anti-Conservative potage. The Foreign Minister signally failed to advance a single sound reason in defence of his Soviet relations policy. Nor was it possible to do so considering the circumstances of the case.