TWO SIDES TO A CURTAIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 419, 4 July 1947, Page 16

TWO SIDES TO A CURTAIN

Sir,-Your correspondent "Consider Both Sides" makes no attempt to live up to his pen-name. Mr. Taylor did not picture Britain as a monster of iniquity: he adopted a very sane and fair attitude in dealing with British-Soviet relations and pointed out the faults of both nations. He did notemention the "control" of the Straits; he said: "We refuse to allow Russia at the Straits the security which we have at Gibraltar and the Suez Canal." I have a copy of the Listener, article and have quoted correctly. It is a pity that your correspondent did not do likewise. "Consider Both Sides" is inconsistent -in one paragraph he is the champion of Italy, Austria and Hungary, all of whom fought against us in the last war, and in the next paragraph he would deny Bulgaria an outlet to the Aegean because she fought against us in that same war. I should like to know where your correspondent got the information that Poland is planning to spend nea a? three times as much on her secret police » f as on agriculture. Those figures would bear checking. rari Russia did not steal Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania and a large part of Poland. In 1940 the three Baltic republics were governed by semi-Fascist groups. The governments of Ethonia and Latvia, in particular, were backed by German ~ (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) } landowners and industrialists who wanted | the Baltic States to join the Axis Powers. These semi-Fascist. governments were overthrown in all three states. The new governments broke away from the policy of the collaborators who had preceded them. They felt that small states were not very safe in a warring world, so decided to join the Soviet Union. In subsequext elections which eye-witnesses say were conducted honestly, 90 per cent of the voters in all three countries voted for union with the Soviet Union.

E.

RYAN

(Kilbirnie).