GOODWILL VISIT TO RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24899, 12 June 1946, Page 7

GOODWILL VISIT TO RUSSIA

PROPOSED LABOUR PARTY MISSION

LASKI URGES SOVIET TO TRY FRIENDSHIP

(N Z. Press Association—Copyright) A LONDON, June 10. According to the Soviet News Agency, the Russian Government favours the proposed goodwill visit to Russia by a British Labour Party mission, led by the chairman of the Labour executive (Professor Harold Laski). The mission will leave for Moscow next month. Speaking to-day at the Labour Party conference at Bournemouth, Professor L .aski appealed to. the rulers of Russia, ‘having experimented with mistrust, to experiment in friendship." Professor Laski said he was convinced that the Socialist Government m Britain required, as the central principle of its policy in the United Nations Organisation, the fullest understanding with Russia. The British Labour Party had always maintained a friendly attitude towards Russia. Could the Russian leaders imagine that the Labour Party, which was the greatest working class party in Western Europe, would lend support directly or indirectly to eny government which sought to threaten Russian security? Both the British and Russian leaders had the obligation to make their So-

cialism not narrowly nationalist but generously internationalist, he said. “Their failure to understand one another endangers the survival of our civilisation,” he said. “No small responsibility for Russian suspicions must be borne by those who decided on secrecy on the atomic bomb,” said Professor Laski. “The poison of this secrecy is spreading further. Scientists have agreed that the life of science depends on ffee, open publicity.” The failure on the part of the Foreign Ministers to agree on the principles of peace was another hindrance in the way of smooth relationship between the two Powers. Professor Laski said that Germany might still become a festering sore in world civilisation. He criticised British foreign policy. That Spain was still being crushed under the tyranny of Franco, he said, was a tragedy. It would be another tragedy if the monarchy were restored in Greece.