July 8.
We read in yesterday's telegram from the Hague conference Matters are at present at a deadlock. The non-Russian delegates maintain that it is for the Russians to produce an explanation of the fantastic figures presented last week, while the Russians declare that they have nothing more to say.
Be if remembered that the Soviet has demanded credits to the amount of £341,000,000 as the least it can consider and as. indispensible preliminary to any "concessions in the way of paying its foreign debts. Furthermore, that' this Hague Conference, an offshoot of Genoa, sits nominally to consider how much of those debts Russia must be asked to pay, and only secondarily to discuss what may be done to assist Russia in paying. [f its members are to be true to their commission, it is easily understood that matters are at a deadlock and one may add a devout hope that the belief of M. Alphand, the French delegate, as expressed to Reuter, that an agreement is impossible, will be justified by events, In the Nineteenth Century for June-there is ar: article by Mr. George A. B. Dewar entitied Genoa and the Times," so true and vital that the widest publicity, should -be given to its main points. His purpose is to show that the attitude of the "Times towards Genoa has been misrepresented as the product of personal antagonism to Mr. Lloyd George and its pur pose obscured by the abuse which has been heaped on Mr. Wickham Steed, its editor, for false reports of conversations between Mr. Lloyd George and M. Barthou. Whereas, says Mr. Dewar "In trying to save the British Empire from disgracing itself by deal with Bolshevism, the 'Times' has been doing the greatest public service that has been attempted in the history of English journalism. Too much attention has been paid to what exactly Mr. Lloyd George did or did not say to M. Barthou, because thereby an infinitely greater question has been muddled and overlooked—namely, ought we, as a great and honourable nation, to traffic with a tyranny having the abominable record and programme of these Soviet leaders?
Tu passing, the present writer (not Mr. Dewar) happens to have known Mr. Steed personally for over 20 years and he is as incapable of transmitting false news for propaganda purposes, still less for motives of personal spite, as he is, on the other hand, one of the best informed and most conscientious journalists in Europe to-day. To return to Mr. Dewar, who is neither a chauvinist nor a reactionary, not writing in capitalist interests nor with hostility to Labour. Incidentally, the fantastic delusion that Bolshevism is really working in Labour's interest is sufficiently exploded by the events of the past few years and that fact was strikingly recognized by the action of the National Labour Conference at Edinburgh last week in rejecting all association with the Communists. Mr. Dewar's aim is simply to emphasize that if is impossible to have any dealings with the Soviet Government without incurring some of the disgrace in which it is steeped. He begins by quoting from ex-President Wilson's Note on the Bolshevists, which, for all that Mr. Wilson may be a discredited man to-day, was a masterpi¢ce in judgement, logic, nobility and thought and style''
"Tu the view of this Government there cannot be any common ground upon which it can stand with o Power whose conceptions of international relations are so entirely alien to its own, so utterly repugnant to its moral sense. There can be no mutual confidence or trust, no respect even, if pledges are to be given and agreements made with a cynical repudiation def their obligations already in the mind of one of those parties. We cannot recognize, hold relations with, or give friendly reception to the agents of a Government which is determined and bound to conspire against our institutions, whose diplomats will be the agitators of dangerous revolt, whose spokesmen say that they sign agreements with no intention of keeping them.""
From this Mr. Dewar goes on to comment en. British policy towards Soviet Russia, culminate ing in the attempt to come to terms with it at Genoa, as follows "The adoption and rigid application of Wilson's policy towards the Bolsheviks would have saved us many lives, millions of money, and we should not to-day be in the disastrous plight that Genoa finds us in. Wilson's policy was far sounder and more courageous than our muddled white-army-Prinkapo-Genoa line. Often since Wilson wrote this Note several of our own political leaders have condemned the Bolsheviks in scathing terms, These selfsame political leaders who professed their detestation of Bolshevism—and even ventured to take an indirect part in the mimic war of white armies—are now prepared to go into business with Bolshevism, for if the object of the Genoa Conference was not some form of partnership, entente, or ce-operation with Lenin, what in the world was it?
"Tf I believed Bolshevism had really reformed, had grown penitent, that it was no longer bent on destroying human progress and society, I should approve of the Genoa Conference and condemn the action of the 'Times' and_ the messages which Mr. Wickham Steed has been sending us. But for any indication of reform and penitence on the part of the Leninites, one asks for something more convincing than the wearing of silk hats and black coats, or even the cultivation of capital in the interests of Communism."
Mr. Dewar then exposes the essential hollowness of the con-. tention, that if we do not do business with the Bolsheviks other nations will and we shall get left, and he concludes with this fine passage "We cannot, as individuals, even afford to cultivate, for instance, notorious City swindlers.. Far less can we as a nation afford, if we are intent on human progress, to cultivate world blackmailers of the Soviet order.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.