MORAL QUESTION RAISED

Taranaki Daily News, 7 February 1931, Page 9

MORAL QUESTION RAISED

SOVIET RULE OF LABOUR SORROW AND SHAME FELT PLEA OF BRITISH BISHOP NEED FOR DISSOCIATION By Telegraph—Press Assn.— Copyright. Rec. 5.5 pan. London, Feb, A Labour conditions in Russia formed the subject of a debate initiated iu the House of Lords ’by Lord Newton. He stated that, the Soviet’s own documents showed that every citizen was either a military or an industrial conscript-. The Bishop of Durham said the, conditions in Russia raised a moral question which Britain, could, not leave unanswered without losing her national self-re-spect, The. whole episcopate. felt sorrow, consternation and shame over Britain's relations with the Soviet. Even at ' the eleventh hour the Government ought responsibly to. dissociate the whole Em- ■ pira from the. abominable proceedings in Russia. He criticised the trade union’s -> jfaihn-e to manifest sympathy- with their . fellow-workera in. Russia. Lord Ponsonby in reply said he did not desire to defend the Soviet Government system or the labour conditions. There might, be horrors in Russia, but. Britain could not set out to correct every nation with different standards of morality and , social decency from her own.