TOPICS OF THE DAY.
DEALING WITH RUSSIA.
IN dealing with Russia the Prime Minister has followed an original and daring course. The ordinary diplomatic method, sanctioned by long custom, would have been .to tell the Soviet Government that they could have, on terms, the recognition which they sought. That is a method of always keeping something up your sleeve to bargain with—a method of producing new points, new claims and arguments designed to be conclusiVe, at opportune moments. There is nothing to be said against such a method so long as it is pursued honourably and with a sincere desire to arrive at mutual satisfaction, rather than at a conquest which leaves one side sore. The method is based on human nature, and it has often served us very well when diploMacy has been iri the hands of scrupulous men. But Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has preferred other ways. He dismissed from his mind the • fact that the Russian rulers so obviously wanted recog- nition that they would be willing to pay a price for it, and would probably yield on all those many points where British demands are perfectly reasonable: He began by recognizing the Soviet Government de jure without any conditions whatever.
The negotiations are simply the means of giving a practical expression to that policy of recognition. After all, the difference between Mr. MacDonald's policy and the policy of any other conceivable British Government is one of manner rather than of principle. We take it that any British Government would have recognized the Soviet Government for all .Practical purposes. Rumour says that Mr. Baldwin's Government had already prepared their plan of recognition. And if they did, that was only common sense. We dislike nearly everything for which the Russian Soviet stands, and because we believe in recognition it does not mean that we have in any sense abated our horror of the cruelty and tyranny with which the revolution was managed. But to put it on the lowest grounds, it is an intense inconvenience to ourselves to keep a political or commercial boycott • going. Such things have often been tried in the past, and they have always failed. Nor does it answer to intervene in a foreign country in order to help one party against another, however deeply we may be convinced of the rightness of one party, and of the wrongness of the other. We intervened in revolutionary France in order to help the victims of the revolution, and we succeeded not in helping them, but in uniting against us elements in France which, if they had been left alone, might well have fallen asunder. Many of those whoni we went to befriend became our enemies, because there is something deep down in human nature which makes a man forget logic, his own wrongs, and even his causes for gratitude, and feel nothing but resentment when he sees the " sacred soil " of his country being trodden by foreign soldiers. Forgetful of experience; we took sides in Russia with the White Armies against the Red. It was a cardinal mistake.
From every point of view, then, both of principle and expediency, we welcome the policy- of recognizing Russia. It would have been absurd to continue a haughty and obstinate policy of non-recognition in view of the 'fact that the present RuSsian Government has held on to power longer than any post-War Government: --Although it has held on to poWer, and has indeed established _itself as firmly as any Government could, it has changed. in many of its aspects, and we firmly believe Ahab it is by -Contact with the outer world and not by a forced seclusion that it will. be compelled to change more. In practice ComMunisna has- broken down and haS given way to what is called the New Economic Policy-a policy which accepts the necessity of capitaliSm and • private trading even though it clings to the form of State-ownership by leasing . out various industries to private companies. Let. us have as close a commercial contact as We possibly can with Russia, and :trust to what is a very reasonable probability—that the sharp and disagreeable - angles will be. rubbed off the more fanatical Russians by the contact.
If we grant Mr.,MacDonald's bold and original premise, we must admit that his speech to the Russian delegates . on Monday was a model. His language was friendly and yet it was extraordinarily candid. He hid nothing that was in his mind. .He expressed, although it was often done by polite implication rather than by a brutal assault of words, the fear that haunts us allthat the political fanaticism in Russia may be too strong and that the desire to make the whole world a convert to Communism may. put blind zealotry in , the place of rational dealing. At all events, Mr. MacDonald left M. Rakovsky and his colleagues in no. doubt as .to . what we expect and require. Unless Englishmen feel that promises will be fulfilled,, that debts will be scrupulously paid, and that foreigners in Russia willi enjoy an un-. questioned right to their property and to the. security of their persons, they will never set up between ourselves and Russia the conditions of confidence from which credit flows. .
Without confidence and credit—the two inseparable things--nothing whatever will be accomplished. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, having treated Russia with a positively engaging frankness, is entitled to expect in return that the delegation shall deal with debts in a businesslike and scientific frame of mind. We have been told too often that the Russian financiers have discovered that the bill for injuries done to Russia when Great Britain helped the White Armies exactly cancels the debts which are due from Russia to us. That coincidence is too much of a miracle to be acceptcd.. It is precisely the kind of assertion which destroys confidence at its birth. Russians should above all remember that British policy is bound to be guided , by the average sentiment in this country. It is not a ., question at all of what Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's Govern- ment might like to do even if Russia were perverse. The growth of trade depends upon the inclinations of the private trader. The Exports Credit Scheme and the - Trade Facilities Act, however much the Government might desire to work them for all they were worth, would avail nothing unless our traders were willing to make use of them.
In the last resort public opinion here, upon which everything turns, will be enormously influenced by the regard or the reverse which Russian agents here may have for their pledges about propaganda. M: Rakovsky told Mr. MacDonald plainly that the Soviet Government wanted to convert the world to Communism, and that their whole political conception of the future of the world depended upon that conversion. Of course, there can be no objection to M. Rakovsky or any other Coin- munist writing or saying in- public what he thinks, but when- there is a secret policy of fomenting trouble in . order to upset the existing order and support subversive movements here with funds which come from nobody knows where,- and go nobody knows where, it is another - matter altog'ether.- • That' is' the sort Of infuriates ordinary. Englishmen, -- and would mean-- an-., end onceand for all to the attempted conciliation between 'the two' countries:. '• - ,
Previous page
