SOVIET LABOUR QUESTION.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20176, 3 March 1931, Page 15

SOVIET LABOUR QUESTION.

BRITISH GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE. QrKOM OUR OWJT COEBEBPOSDEKT.) LONDON", January 20. On December 11th, Sir Hilton Young sent to the Prime Minister a sworn statement by three Russian refugees concerning the deplorable conditions in the timber prison camps in North Russia. Since then others have given testimony regarding the conditions. Sir Hilton Young invited Mr Macdonald to say what action the Government proposed to take in the matter, and Mr Macdonald promised that he would cause enquiries to be made. He has now replied as follows: "I have given very careful consideration, in consultation with the Government Departments concerned, to your letter of December 11th, about conditions in the Soviet timber industry, and I can now answer the questions which you put to me. "Your first question was whether action can be taken under tho Foreign Prison-made Goods Act, 1897: to this I must repeat what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in the House of Commons on November 25th and December *3rd—that action under the Act can be taken only if evidence is produced that any particular consignment of goods has been made or produced wholly or in part in a 'foreign prison,' and that such evidence must be sufficiently detailed and conclusive to satisfy the Commissioners of Customs and Excise that any action taken would be sustainable if challenged in a Court of Law.

The Law as it Stands. i ''The information supplied by you and others (and the evidence which has so far reached me is not all of an adverse character) does not, I am advised, fulfil the of the Act or afford a basis for action .under the existing law. The information, in fact, suggegts that- the timber industry in Northern: Russia, including; the felling, removing, sawing and shipping; is at present carried oh. not only by means of convict labour and compulsory labour but also by free labour. It would, therefore, be impossible to prove legally that any' particular consignment of timber was made or produced in a ' foreign prison, gaol, house of correction, or penitentiary/ It is, I think, clear that the law,' as it stands, does not give tae Government the power which you wish it to exercise, and that therefore legislation would be necessary, j' may also point out that the legislation would have i to deal, even according to the statements which you have supplied, not -only with prison labour but with labour conditions in general, and would not only afEect Russia. "This leads to your second question, whether his Majesty's Government propose to take steps—which would -have to be legislative steps—to put 'a l stfop to the trade in Bus si an cally named, or in timber sprottpcod under conditions of the same natureSps those alleged to be prevalent in tfik Russian timber camps. A general prohibition extending the 'prison goods' provisions and making them more definite would require to be passed, setting up standards of general labour' This . would be» a - very aerious step in, view of , world labour conditions, and, after .carefpi. consideration- of it#; bearing w our commercial • relations j I atri ? riot' in present circumstances satisfied that snch a' measure ,t(the only one which would satisfy the ' humanitarian Reeling stirred up by' this anti-Soviet' campaign)" is practicable.' 5 a'v 4 ' L \ ,