SOVIET METHODS

Wairarapa Daily Times, 17 March 1933, Page 5

SOVIET METHODS

SABOTAGE CHARGES FURTHER ARRESTS. Press Association Electric Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, Thursday. Moscow has officially announced that nine more employees of the Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Company have been arrested and charged with sabotage. All are Russians, of whom six are women. The arrests now total 40. Tire -Soviet Foreign Office informed the British Embassy at Moscow that it was impossible to say whether the six Vickers representatives . first arrested would be tried until the investigation of the sabotage charges had been concluded. The trial, if any, would be in public.

The “News Chronicle’’ is informed that the defence of the arrested persons is being entrusted to a Russian advocat'd officially appointed English counsel not being allowed to appear. The Riga correspondent of “The Times’’ reports that arrests of engineers continue, the Ogpu intending a clean sweep as part of the new policy of political economy. “The Times” says: “The Government’s representations to the Soviet cannot be too strong. It is intolerable that British subjects working in Russia and executing contracts witli the Soviet Government should be included among the victims of Ogpu’s hunt for scapegoats for the miscalculations and mismanagement by Soviet authorities.” M. LITVINOFF’S VIEW. (Received Friday, 12.5 p.m.) MOSCOW', Thursday. Sir Esmond Ovey conferred with M. Litvinoff for 90 minutes, and informed him that, in the Government’s view, there was no justification for the charges on Which the arrests were made. It is understood that M. Litvinoff replied that the Soviet’s actions were based on the ground that each Government had a sovereign right to deal with people living in its territory. Sir Esmond Ovey did not demand the immediate release of the Britons, but implied that the release was a necessary means for straightening An-glo-Soviet re la tdons. BAN ON RUSSIA. R ETALIATION URG ED. (Received Friday, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Thursday. The “Daily Express” says: “While Mr Ramsay Macdonald is weaving webs at Geneva the Soviet is treating British subjects as no other nation before dared. It contemptuously and insolently disregards the decencies of international relations. Air AlacDonald must return from Europe, which is no concern of ours, and teach Russia we won’t submit to maltreatment of nationals by a ban on Russian trading.”