SABOTAGE CHARGE

Wairarapa Daily Times, 16 March 1933, Page 5

SABOTAGE CHARGE

ARREST OF BRITISHERS. SERIOUS VIEW TAKEN. LONDON, Wednesday. It. is understood that the British Ambassador to Moscow, Sir Esmond o\ej, made strong (representations to the Soviet authorities about the secretiveness of the proceedings against the, six representatives of the Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Company, Messrs. Monkhouse, Thornton’’ Cushy, MacDonald. Nordwell and Gregory, who were arrested in Moscow. The Ambassador stated that the British -Government was taking a serious view of the case. The Soviet Foreign Office then said that members of the Embassy would be allowed to visit the prisoners siibjeet to representatives of the Soviet being present and no reference being made to motives ot the airest. Sii Esmond Ovey visited the Lubianlca o-aol and conversed with the four prisoners there. He found them comfortable and in normal health. No satisfactory reply to the representations of the Ambassador in Moscow has yet been received. London has not been informed of the specific charge against the arrested men apart from a general reference to sabotage. The “Mourning Post’s” political correspondent says that Mr Stanley Baldwin will make an important statement in the House of Commons to-day on the subject of the arrests. It is expected that an apology will shortly be forthcoming in the form of a statement that the arrests occurred without the knowledge of M. _ Litvinoff, Commissary' of Foreign Affairs, who is taking st-e-ps to meet the representations °of the British Government. The Metropolitan Vickers Company states that during the past ten years it has had continuous business dealings with the- Russian Government, and lias supplied large quantities of electrical machinery and other apparatus, and the dealings between the Soviet and the company have been satisfactory in every way. Throughout the long period of its, business dealings it has been the rigid -rule of the company that every employee must concern himself solely with matters of trade and have nothing whatever to do with political and allied matters. Pending further developments the company is, confident a mistake has been made and that there _ are no grounds whatever for the action of the authorities in Moscow, BRITAIN’S STRONG PROTEST. (Received Thursday, 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, Wednesday. In the House of Commons Mr Stanley Baldwin stated that the Ambassador at Moscow had been instructed to express, in strong terms, the Government’s grave view of the Soviet’s proceedings against the Vickers Company employees which the -Government was convinced were groundless. The Soviet authorisation, that the Ogpu, should conduct trials without restriction and impose death sentences, has increased anxiety in British official quarters. Sir Esmond Ovey could ask the prisoners only whether their health and food were satisfactory and if the -exercise ' they were receiving were sufficient. '