20 JUNE 1931, Page 17

RUSSIAN TIMBER CAMPS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

Sia,—Considerable publicity has been given to the Report on Russian Timber Camps, by Sir Alan Pim, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., and Mr. Edward Bateson, and perhaps rightly so, because the Anti- Slavery Society under whose auspices the Report is issued is in the public opinion an impartial body. The Report, however, has been so edited as to leave out an essential sentence from my letter to the Society declining to give evidence before the special committee. There was, of course, no obligation on the part of the Society to publish my letter, but, having decided to do so, it should have been incumbent upon them to publish it in such a form as not to leave out the most essential sentence even if it were not to the liking of the Society.

The first sentence of the second paragraph of my letter read as follows :

" The allegations concerning conditions in Soviet Timber Camps have been produced by a campaign pursuing such obvious political aims that the whole thing cannot be considered otherwise than as a political ' stunt.' "

This part of my letter has been left out of the Report, but it is precisely the fact that the Society allowed itself to be used in the interests of this campaign by appointing a committee of investigation that made me decide not to give evidence. If it has been possible to so edit the material in their possession one is tempted to ask—what other matter has been left out in order to produce the picture presented by the Report ?

As further illustrations of the way the committee handled its material I will point to two other references in the Report. On page 87 +he editors say " It is certainly most unlikely that the timber cut in a prisoners' camp near the White Sea should be intended for the home market in Russia though we observe that this has been stated as a fact by Mr. Harby." Nothing in the Report proves that the timber referred to was used for export, and one looks in vain for anything which might justify such an observation. • On page 101 there is another veiled suggestion of inaccuracy on my part which, however, is more easily dealt with. Here the editors make the following observations :

" As stated by. Mr. Stewart, and as we also know from other sources, there are about 30 sawmills at various points up to about 10 miles from Archangel, some of them apparently on islands, and there also appear to be other loading points.

"Obviously, therefore, it would be a considerable task to visit every sawmill in the Archangel district and Mr. Harby has unfor- tunately not been willing to give us an opportunity of ascertaining in detail what he has actually seen or of estimating his qualifications as an impartial observer."

I could take anyone to Archangel and visit every sawmill in the district in a week, and if you divide the thirty mills into nine groups it would. be possible to stay in each of the groups a month and to visit each of the mills in the group every day, and thus during the nine months I was there it Would have been possible to have worked in every mill for one month. As a matter of fact I was at some of the mills longer than others, but the foregoing is sufficient to prove that to visit every sawmill in the Archangel district was by no means a " considerable task " as the investigators say in their Report.

There is nothing in the Report affecting my opinion as to the political nature of the campaign, or in any way disproving my, or others', statement of fact that no convict labour is used in the production of timber for export. The Report, in my opinion, gives a complete justification for my refusal to give evidence on the ground that the whole campaign was a political " stunt." I have drawn the attention of the Anti-Slavery Society to these matters, but in view of the publicity already given to the Report I shall be glad if, in the interests of fair- ness, you will avail yourself of an opportunity to publish this