AGREEMENT WITH RUSSIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 291, 7 December 1929, Page 20 (Supplement)

AGREEMENT WITH RUSSIA

TEXT OF THE POTOCOL EXCHANGE WITH BRITAIN The Foreign Office last month issued lhe terms of the protocol relative to the procedure for the settlement of questions outstanding between his Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 1 The procedure is to become operative immediately on the resumption of full diplomatic relations between the two States, including the exchanging of ambassadors. The protocol is as follows: The undersigned, the Right Honourable Arthur Henderson, M.P., his Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and M, Valerian Dovgalevsky, Ambassador of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the French Republic, having on instructions from their respective Governments entered into an exchange of views of questions connected with the above-mentioned subject, have reached the following agreement:— 1. The following questions shall be settled by negotiation betw’een the two Governments:—. (1) Definition of the attitude of both Governments towards the treaties of 1924. (2) Commercial treaty and allied questions. (3) Claims and counter-claims, in-ter-Governmental and private; debts claims arising out of intervention and otherwise, and financial questions connected with such claims and counter-claims. (4) Fisheries. (a) Application of previous treaties and conventions. 2. Negotiations between his Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics w r ith a view to the settlement of the abovementioned questions shall take place immediately on the resumption of full diplomatic relations, including the exchange of ambassadors. 3. The aforesaid negotiations shall be conducted on behalf of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics by the Soviet Ambassador in London and on behalf of his Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom by his Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 4. The plenipotentiaries of the two Governments shall, if necessary, be assisted by joint committees, the members of which shall be appointed in fjqual number by each Government from among their nationals, whether officials or not, specially acquainted with the matters under discussion.

5. These experts shall report to each of the plenipotentiaries on results reached in their joint examination oi the respective questions and on the solution thereof which they suggest. I 6 All agreements resulting from the negotiations between the plenipotentiaries shall take the form of a treaty or treaties between the two Governments.

7. Immediately on the actual exchange of ambassadors and not later than the same day as that on which the respective ambassadors present their credentials both Governments W’ill reciprocally confirm the pledge with regard to propaganda contained in article 16 of the treaty signed on August 8, 1924, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 8. Simultaneously with the approval by both Governments of the procedure laid down in paragraphs 1-7 his Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom will take the decision to resume normal diplomatic relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Repub-

lies, including the exchange of ambassadors.

9. The steps to be taken as set out in the preceding paragraphs, including the decision concerning the re-estab-lishment of diplomatic relations, will be brought for approval before Parliament early at the beginning of the next session. Immediately after this question shall have been discussed in Parliament each of the two Governments will take the usual steps for the appointment of their respective ambassadors. (Signed) Arthur Henderson. (Signed) V. Dovgalevsky. London, October 3, 1929. The Propaganda Pledge Article 16 of the 1924 treaty, to which reference is made in the protocol, reads as follows; “The contracting parties solemnly affirm their desire and intention to live in peace and amity with each other; scrupulously to respect the undoubted right of a State to order its own life within its own jurisdiction in its own way; to • refrain and to restrain all persons and organisations under their direct or indirect control, including organisations in receipt of any financial assistance from them, from any act, overt or covert, liable in any way whatsoever to endanger the tranquility or prosperity of any part of the territory of the British Empire or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or intended to embitter the relations of the British Empire or th Union with their neighbours or any other countries,” “Stable and Lasting Relations” Reuter’s Agency w r as informed that Mr Dovgalevsky, the Soviet plenipotentiary subsequently made the following statement regarding his conversations with Mr Henderson, the Foreign Minister:— “Before leaving London I wish to express my satisfaction at the successful outcome of the negotiations between Mr Henderson and myself embodied in the protocol relative to the procedure for the settlement of outstanding questions between the two Governments, which procedure will become operative immediately on the resumption of full diplomatic relations between the two States, including the exchange of ambassadors. “This agreement has been concluded in the spirit of the first exchange of Notes between the two Governments on which the Soviet Government based themselves when accepting the invitation of the British Govern-' ment to send a plenipotentiary to Lon-i don. I have every hope that the | agreement reached between Mr Henderson and myself will be the beginning of the establishment at an early!

date of stable and lasting relations between Great Britain and the U.B.S.H. in the mutual interests of both oountrios.”

“Izvestia” commenting on the Proto- ’ says: “If the issue of the London negotiations may be called a victory for Moscow it is much more a victory for common sense.” The Izvestia cites among factors which havf pushed the British Government toward an understanding with the Soviet L’n. ion the failure of the policy that imagined a breach of relations would force the Soviet to capitulate and th« need of the Russian market as a means of relieving industrial depression. Tue paper suggests that the dissatisfaction of the Conservative French press indicates that the Labour Government is pursuing a policy corresponding with the British interests on this question. The Workers’ Gazette issues the following warning in connection with th( forthcoming negotiations:—“We knoU the Labour Government will attempt t< make serious capital from the so-called questions of debts and propaganda. But the raising of these questions does not frighten the toiling masses of the Soviet Union. Anyway, the account for the Tsarist debts and for compensating capitalists whom the revolution drove from the Soviet Union will be less impressive and indisputably lest well founded than our counter-account for armed interventions of British Imperialism during the period of civil war. ”