[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Writing as I am
with a temperature of one hundred and three degrees, you must excuse me if my language in replying to Mr. Metcalf's insidious Soviet propaganda descends in places to the level of that used in modem Parliamentary debates. I say " Soviet propaganda " advisedly, as apparently Mr. Metcalf is employed in pouring out this stream of fulsome praise of the U.S.S.R. in other publications besides the Spectator. People know what I stand for. Let Mr. Metcalf come out bravely and admit his position and what interests he represents.
It is waste of time to reply to your correspondent's assertions seriatim. Unless he is prepared to dub the Archbishop of Canterbury a liar for his statement in the House of Lords, and Sir Hilton Young a trusting imbecile for officially bringing to the notice of the Government sworn statements of conditions in the timber camps, which Mr. Metcalf suggests are all inven- tions, then it is merely an instance of supreme egotism on his part to take up the attitude he does. Mr. Metcalf has never been to a Soviet timber camp to investigate. No one has Permission was refused to our own Government, and the Soviet Government lost a large timber contract with the United States rather than allow twelve American Communists, to be selected by the Soviet, to visit the camps. Mr. Metcalrs callousness in representing the agonized death of ecclesiastics from starvation, cold and overwork as merely stiffness of muscle consequent on the performance of unaccustomed labour must make even the devils in hell grin. There is no more authentic fact in history than that the conditions in the timber camps of North Russia are appalling in their cruelty, and almost beyond description and belief.—I am, Sir, &c., B. J. WILDEN-HART
(Hon. Organizer and General Secretary, Anti-Soviet Persecution and Slave-Labour League),
88 Onslow Gardens, London, S.W. 7.
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