Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, 21st DEC., 1932. RUSSIA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 21 December 1932, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, 21st DEC., 1932. RUSSIA.

Governments which conduct newspapers may chance to find themselves responsible for the statements appearing therein. This is the present position of the Soviet Government in respect of its organ, “Izvestia,” which had charged the British Foreign Office with instructing its agents to furnish documents, real, or bogus, establishing a connection between the Soviet and the Communist International. For this the British Government demands an apology, and also takes.,the occasion to insist once more on the abandonment of all such propagandist tactics. Presumably, as so often before, the men of Moscow will promise and default. Sovietism is well used to giving pledges for Communism to break, it is the old game of “Spenlow and -Torkins. ” To take the thing seriously seems scarcely worth while. Russia is a thoroughly bad neighbour, a worse because a more influential one than ever was “the unspeakable Turk,” and with such a neighbour there should be a minimum of dealing. There is

no 'more real need to go seeking for proofs of the link between the Soviet and the Third International than there was to find the origins of the;famous;“Red letter” of Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s first Ministry, for in both cases the basic facts have long been notorious. Even if nothing definite were known, a Government which controls every kind of internal activity is plainly responsible, not only for a single newspaper, but for all manifestations of whatever sort. No other Government in the world carries so direct a burden of praise or blame. The Russian Government, in fact, js by its own choice answerable for the entire condition of Russia. Little wonder, then, that it. is worried and touch. For its “Plan” is so vastly disappointing.