PRIMATE REBUKES DUKE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 970, 13 May 1930, Page 14

PRIMATE REBUKES DUKE

PEER’S BITTER SPEECH ON RUSSIA “MERE MURDER” A speech of concentrated and calculated bitterness on the subject of the services and prayer on the day of intercession for Russian Christians, made by the Duke of Atholl in the Hous e of Lords, evoked a reproof from the Archbishop of Canterbury for a speech which he described as having been “spoiled by irresponsibility and encumbered with irrelevances.” The duke’s astonishing statement was read from a full typescript in a level voice that contrasted strangely with the harshness of its terms. He expressed ironic surprise that the Government should have feared a state of affairs in Russia becoming “a political question instead of a mere matter of murder,” and declared that the suppression of the Ovey Report by the Foreign Office makes it perfectly clear that the charges against the Soviet Government have been proved. Russia or China? “How,” the duke asked, “does the Government wish to distinguish between the murder and torture of women and children in Russia and. say, in China? Why should soldiers and sailors be allowed to join in prayer for Chinese pagans when they are forbidden to do so for Russian Christians?” The Archbishop of Canterbury said that, in his opinion, the action of the Government had been both unfortunate and unnecessary. There had been no justification for saying in the beginning that the call to prayer had any sort of political significance, for it was nothing more than the expression of an instinct so deep-rooted that it refused to be suppressed.