QUESTIONS IN COMMONS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 139, 10 December 1930, Page 11

QUESTIONS IN COMMONS

REFLECTIONS ON BRITAIN

REPLY TO PROTEST

(British OfficUl Wircleii.) EUGBY, Bth December. The Foreign Secretary, Mr. Arthur Henderson, in replying to a large number of questions in tho House of Commons to-day regarding the reply received to his protest to the Soviet Government against the reflections on His Majesty's Government at the Moscow conspiracy trial, read a translation of the reply of the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, M. Chichcrin. Tho reply says that the Soviet Government has not expressed its views on the references to the alleged participation of British circles in the intervention plans which were made by the accused in their depositions and evidence. It claims that the Court could not deprive the accused of the right to any evidence or confessions they considered necessary; nor could the Public Prosecutor avoid basing his indictment upon them. The Court devoted almost no attention to the matter. PROPAGANDA AGAINST BRITAIN. Asked if a reply had been received to the representations to the Soviet Government respe«ting the anti-British propaganda in Moscow broadcast on Tuesday, 2nd December, the Foreign Secretary said that the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs had made a verbal statement to the effect that the broadcast was from a station not under the control of the Soviet Government, but controlled by the Council of Trades Unions. The Soviet Commissar- added that at the time of the Central Council being given tho right to broadcast, no messages of this nature were contemplated, and, in consideration of the British Foreign Secretary's declaration as to the undesirabUity of such broadcasts in future, it would be impressed on the Council of Trades Unions that no such messages should be transmitted.