THE SOVIET " CONCESSIONS."
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sra,—I wish I could share your belief that the exchange of Notes with the Soviet Government has led to a satis- factory arrangement. That Government has obtained all it really cared for—the maintenance of a base of operations in London. All the rest is of little account. The seizure of trawlers would necessarily have ceased directly the Admiralty began to protect the rights of our fishermen. The settlement of two other claims is a small matter having regard to the thousands of British citizens who have been ruined by Bolshevik robbery. Many of these poor people have had their health broken by ill- treatment in Soviet prisons. In addition, the Agent at Kabul is to be withdrawn, and his colleague at Teheran, who has been effectively carrying out Soviet instructions, is to be warned not to perform this duty in future. An " expanded undertaking " not to carry on propaganda against the British Empire has been given. All this, con- sidering the people from whom it emanates, is, I submit, perfectly futile. There are many other agents of Bolshevism bard at work. In India a number of trained preachers of revolution are actively employed, and specimens have lately been arrested. Will the rest be recalled ? Can anyone suppose that one of the principal aims of Bolshevik foreign policy—the raising of the East against the West—will now be abandoned ? Attacks on our Government in the Soviet Press continue with vitriolic intensity, and it has been explained that Weinstein, the author of the offensive Notes, has not been removed from his important office. This alien, masquerading as a Russian, is not likely to have changed his views.
After Lord Curzon's first Note had been dispatched the Soviet Government mobilized its allies in this country, instructing them to say that it was a case of peace or war, which was obviously false. The removal of the so-called Trade Delegation implied nothing more than the denouncing of a commercial treaty, and this idea that war with the Soviet dictators would follow was suggested of set purpose. The Labour Party, which was all the time in communication with Moscow, and was receiving copies of the Notes behind the back of the Foreign Office, succeeded in alarming its adherents, as the Bolsheviks intended. Anyone who studies some of the extraordinary provisions in the original agree. ment might well ascribe it to the genius who drafted the Irish Treaty. The general effect has been that we have made considerable purchases, including those of stolen British property, in Russia, and have received relatively small orders, our purchase money being expended in other countries, and especially in Germany. The United States had no trade agreement and resented our admission of the Bolshevik delegation ; but Americans have carried on a satisfactory trade with a marked balance in their favour. The presence of a Bolshevik distributing centre of propaganda and sub- sidies in London is, therefore, unnecessary to trading opera- tions ; but it is and it remains—extremely important to the Soviet Government. Who sups with the Bolsheviks requires a longer spoon than we appear to have at disposal.
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