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Hokitika Guardian, 14 February 1931, Page 4

The debate in the House of Lords initiated by Lord Newton on Labour conditions in Russia was productive of some outspoken comment. The Government was placed on the defensive by strong criticism of its action in not taking cognisance of these conditions, and Lord I’onsonby's reply on its behalf was not such as could he considered effective. It amounted really to a 'begging of the question. There might be horrors in Russia, said Lord Pciisonby, but Great Britain could not set out to correct every nation witli different standards of luoralify and social decency from her own. That is. of course, true enough, but this particular argument is not to be clinched by a generalisation of that kind. Tile indignation colouring the speeches of protest in the House of Lords will have been in no small degree heightened by the recent reports of the terrible conditions in the Russian timber camps, the revelations concerning which grow more appalling. Lore", Ponsonb.v apparently suggested that there was an insufficiency of evidence regarding these prison camps. As has been indicated in our cable news, Commander Bellairs has taken up this point in a communication to Mr Ramsay MacDonald, the contents of which include affidavits from n number of Russian escapees. The affidavits, extracts from which are quoted, bear out what has been previously published—much of it in a report forwarded to the British Prime Minister by Mr Hilton Young. M.P, — and add gruesome details. The pop* illation of the Soviet timber camps is said to be 060,000, and the conditions under which the wretched occupants are forced to labour, and the description of the mortality, typhus carrying off these unfortunates by thousands, combine to present a picture which scarcely bears contemplation. Groat Britain lias not always been reluctant points out the Otago Times, to raise her voice in the interests of suffering humanity, even where foreign Governments have been concerned. She was wont to be in the forefront as the champion of the oppressed, so far as it was reasonably possible for her to adopt that role. Tn the present instance the Government need surely not stand upon the punctilio of its official relation with the Government at Moscow, and refrain from expressing its abhorrence of conditions obtaining under the Soviet regime which, if half what is reported he true, constitute an outrage upon civilisation.