SECRET DISCLOSED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 308, 20 March 1928, Page 9

SECRET DISCLOSED

Light on Zinovieff Letter MAN WHO STARTED THE AFFAIR By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. THE famous Zinovieff letter, which fell like a bombshell on the eve of the last General Election in Great Britain, v/as supplied to the “Daily Mail” by a London business man, who has written a letter to Mr. Baldwin disclosing- the fact that he had not received any information from the Foreign Office. Mr. Baldwin read the letter in the House of Commons, following Mr. Ramsay Macdonald’s demand for an inquiry into the affair.

Reed. 11.15 a.m. LONDON, Monday. The Right Hon. Ramsay Macdonald, in the House of Commons moved that the revelations of the board inquiring into the Foreign Office currency scandal, concerning the Zlnovieff letter, demanded an inquiry empowered to take evidence on oath. There were two aspects of the letter, he said. First, a Foreign Office document, and secondly what was now admitted to be a political fraud, which, in coot calculation and preparation, was unmatched in British history. Mr. Macdonald, continuing, said that his decision for general publication of the letter was made to protect the Foreign Office from political attack, which it was known the “Daily Mall” was making the next morning. Though Sir Austen Chamberlain subsequently admitted that he could not have handled the matter differently or more expeditiously than he did, it was the suggestion that the Foreign Office sat upon the letter for two or three weeks, to which the Conservatives largely owed their electoral success. No living soul had seen or claimed to have seen the original Zinovieff letter,” said Mr. Macdonald. Apparently more than one alleged copy was about. Everyone was guilty of sometimes overstepping the mark in the rough and tumble of elections. This was totally different. It was a case of a few people, including some foreigners and some controllers of newspapers, successfully conspiring, possibly by forgery, certainly by fraud, to influence the elections. The letter of Mr. Thomas Marlowe, editor of the "Daily Mail,” proved that there had been a systematic leakage of State documents, which meant that if Labour were in power someone inside the departments could carry information to opponents for political purposes. MR. BALDWIN’S REPLY The Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin said that he refused the inquiry on the ground that it would serve no national end, and was foredoomed to futility. He revealed that the copy of the Zinovieff letter was communicated to the “Daily Mail” by Conrad Donald im Thurn, a business man in the city, not connected with a Government department or politics. Mr. Baldwin contended that the event which really stirred the country and shattered the electors’ faith in Labour was the failure to prosecute the Communist, Donald Campbell. Then there was the Russian Treaty, under which the British taxpayer would become responsible for interest and sinking fund on the loans to be raised by the Soviet. As a result of these events Labourites had lost the election even before publication of the Zinovieff letter. The latter contained nothing new. It was an incitement to procure disloyalty among troops which Soviet propagandists made in every country in Europe.

If Mr. Macdonald had continued to show the backbone he revealed by the protest he sent to the Soviet he might have saved many seats, continued Mr. Baldwin.

Mr. Marlowe’s letter did not reveal •any leakage from the departments. Labourites talked as though the letter was a British State document. It was a letter from Moscow to English Communists whose executive had discussed It prior to the Foreign Office receiving it. Any Communist might have given it to the Press. History sho rd that men who were ritors to their own country would be traitors to one another. LABOURITE ORDERED OUT Mr. T. Williams (Labour) interjected, suggesting that Mr. Baldwin was lying, and was ordered to leave the House. Mr. Baldwin declared that no good purpose could be served by calling Mr. Marlowe. If the latter refused to betray the informant, in obedience to a principle of journalism, they would be helpless. If they committed him to the clocktower or even to prison they would only make themselves a laughing stock. In this case no British secret was revealed and no dis-service had been done to the nation. Mr. im Thurn, who first gave the information, said Mr. Marlowe had authorised him (Mr. Baldwin) to read a letter, stating that in view of the Labour attacks on Government departments, also his own release from a pledge of secrecy, he wished to inform the Commons that he had learned from a business acquaintance, two days before it reached the Foreign Office, that Moscow had sent an extraordinary letter to British Communists. In view of the alleged incitements to sedition, he asked his friend to get a copy, which he did the following day. Mr. Baldwin said that he had never heard nor seen the man till to-day. Mr. im Thurn’s letter added: “I was indignant with Moscow, which was about to borrow here, trying to foment sedition, and decided to inform the Government and send the letter to the Press. As soon as my informant, who said that his life was endangered, reached safety and handed over a copy to a friend in close touch with the ‘Daily Mail.’ I received no payment or other reward for it. I was solely responsible for obtaining the text and arranging publication. The ‘Daily Mail’ received no assistance from anyone or any Government office, and was actuated by solely patriotic motives.” Sir Douglas Hogg, Attorney-Gen-eral, challenged Mr. MacDonald to answer “yes” or "no,” whether he would have had the letter published before the election, apart from the “Daily Mail’s” action. Mr. MacDonald replied that he intended to follow the usual Foreign Office practice of publishing correspondence with a foreign Power when the proper end had been reached. — A. and N.Z. Mr. C. D. im Thurn is a >ieahew of Sir Everard ini Thurn, K.C.M.G., who has been in Britain's colonial service in many lands, and sometime Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific.