The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1927. PROPAGANDA PURPOSE.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 December 1927, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1927. PROPAGANDA PURPOSE.

Tun decision of the Soviet Government to send delegates to the Disarmament Commission at Geneva has natmallj provoked much criticism and speculation in Europe, and the general impression seems to lie that the real purpose of the Bolsheviks is to use the oe-

easion uk un opportunity for propaganda. This suspicion has been strongly confirmed, says a northern writer, by the extraordinary proposals that Litvinoff lias submitted to the Commission. The Soviet plan for abolishing war is simply to decree the destruction of all armies and navies and munitions at' the shortest possible notice, and thus by depriving the whole world of the means of making war to ensure universal peace. It is difficult

to criticise these crude and childish proposals except oil the assumption that they have been deliberately framed in such a form as to render their rejection certain. In characteristic Marxist fashion Litvinoff opened his speech by charging the responsibility for all wars upon “capitalist’’ States and Governments, and ho proceeded to denounce the League of Nations for its impotence and its failure to achieve any material result in the way of disarmament. Obviously it is part of the Soviet programme to malign and misrepresent all other systems and policies, and so to prepare the way for the inevitable defeat of its own proposals. As to the subject matter of Litvinoff’s scheme, several prominent memliers of / the Council—notably Dr Benes and M. Briand—indignantly resented the Soviet attack upon the League, and pointed out that the whole question of universal and simultaneous disarmament has already been carefully considered at Geneva and has been adjudged impracticable. But the purpose of the Soviet Government has been well served by Litvinoff. who seized an early

opportunity to give the Bolshevik disarmament scheme full publicity, and is now in a position to throw upon the League the responsibility for refusing to accept it. No doubt this tactical advantage will be enough to satisfy the Bolsheviks, who will he content to know that they have in a sense outgcneralled their opponents. But as for the scheme itself, nobody can he expected to take it seriously. The London papers, representing all shades of political opinion, are singularly outspoken and almost uniformly contemptuous about the Litvinoff plan. The “Daily Chronicle,” which represents the Liberal point of view, says: “We may be sure the Russians felt no uneasiness in putting forward a program which they knew they would not be called upon to undertake themselves.” The “Daily News,” which ts also Liberal, thinks “there cannot be many who are deceived by this clumsy farce”; and even the “Daily Herald,” pro-Bolshevik ’as fit is, describes it rather as a challenge than a practicable programme. As for the effect of such an experiment, AT. Boncour pointed out that it would leave the small and

weak nations entirely at the mercy of powerful and unscrupulous States; and M. Briand less politely drew attention to the enormous forces which the Soviet State now has at. its disposal. The Litvinoff plan is foredoomed to rejection But it will serve the purpose of the Bolsheviks, by enabling them to pose as champions and apostles of peace,. and to charge everybody else with preparing and promoting war. Russia and the world wall he told that the Russian (Government gave the nations a lead in disarmament, hut that the nations refused to accept it,

and of course Capitalism will be blamed and the saints of Sovietism will le depicted as all the whiter by contrast with this wickedness.