The Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal of Soviet Russia has condemned the
Roman Catholic Archbishop Ciepliak and Mgr. Butkevitch to death. Hitherto, the Soviet has not interfered much with the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Russia, but the present move is calculated at once to excite anti-Polish sentiment and also to withdraw attention from the impending trial of the Patriarch Tikhon at Moscow. There were .exeiting scenes in the House of Commons when the Government announced that in spite of the protests of the British representative at Moscow, the death sentence had been passed. Mr. Newbold was made to feel the isolation of his position as the only British Communist in Parliament, since the whole Labour Party was united in protesting against the sentences. Indeed, protest is universal from all quarters. It is almost unthinkable that the Bolsheviks will celebrate their Easter by some of the most horrible, because the most deliberate, murders that even they have committed. If they do so it will, indeed, be a disaster for all Europe, since it will make more difficult than ever a resumption of trade relations with them, which is, after all, one of the few ways that remain of repairing our economic losses.
Previous page
