LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
In Russia and Outside
itift,—Mr. Pearson is very naive if .he expects people to swallow what be implies in his letter about the Russian miners being able to leave their jobs without getting any permission from anyone or informing anyone. Will Mr. Pearson tell us what happens to them if they do this and what, happens to their ration cards? Can they go to any other job they like in any other industry in any other part of Russia, or do they by any mischance land in one of the Labour Concentration Camps ? He denies that visitors and foreigners are spied upon. This is testified by numbers of people of all kinds. Or is it that Communists like himself are allowed a special privilege ? Nor is there, contends Mr.
Pearson, any Iron Curtain. In that case, will Mr. Pearson explain why there are 200 transmitters jamming all the time news from this country and U.S.A. ? Why is it that diplomatic officials of foreign countries in Russia are only allowed to travel in very restricted areas and short distances from their offices ? Why is it that the only British paper in Russia,' British Ally, is restricted in its circulation to almost vanishing point, whereas we are deluged in this country with Russian and pro- Russian papers and periodicals 7 This year the Communist secretary of the Polish Miners' Union attended the miners' May Day celebration in Edinburgh and returned and reported as follows in the Polish paper Trybuna Luda:— " The Scottish miners obtained permission from , the English authorities to organise a miners' holiday and only under this pretext could a workers' manifestation be held in Edinburgh on the holiday of the industrial proletariat in which 40,000 people participated. The demonstrations were held under the supervision of constantly strengthened numbers of foot and mounted police."
iHas Mr. Pearson, as Scottish Secretary of the Miners' Union, taken any steps to explain the situation to the Polish miners and Polish nation? If
not, why not ? he tried to get any statement published anywhere in any of the Polish papers or broadcast throughout Poland? Or did he recognise that the Iron Curtain would drop on any communication he
might make 7—Yours sincerely, GEORGE DALLAS. Strathclyde, Gt. Doddington, Northants.
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