The Trial at Moscow
THE trial of the British employees of the Metropolitan- Vickers company in Russia is due to open on Monday. The affair remains profoundly disturbing and the facts published in the White Paper issued on Tuesday do not make it less so, though the story con- tained in that document carries us only from the date of the arrests, March 12th, to the date of a prolonged interview between the British Ambassador in Moscow and the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs four days later. That is more than three weeks ago, and since then the charges against the accused men have been indicated in language which is still vague, but does at least give some idea of the course the coming trial is likely to take. The meagreness of the publication laid before the House of Commons is to be regretted and not easily to be excused. It isolates the first confused five days of negotiation, concentrates attention on the ordeal of cross-examination to which the British prisoners were subjected, and omits everything that would have assisted the House to discuss the immediate future intelligently. It might have been better to publish nothing at all than so little as this.
At this juncture, on the eve of a trial that may have decisive effects on the diplomatic and commercial relationships of this country with Russia, it is necessary to examine the case of the British engineers from every angle and with as much repression as is humanly possible of the indignation which the policy and methods of the Moscow authorities inevitably arouse. That the accused men are guilty of any crime of consequence no one in this country believes. There is no ground for believing it and every ground for disbelieving it. The men in question are technicians, not politicians. They enjoy the complete confidence of a British firm of unblemished reputation. They would have everything to lose and nothing conceivable to gain by trespassing outside the sphere of their professional employment to meddle in affairs which in no way concerned them. On the other hand, there is all too much support in recent history (e.g., the Ramzin trial two years ago) for the theory that the Soviet Government is seeking scapegoats among both Russian and foreign technicians for the breakdown of its own industrial plans. That theory, so far, fits the facts better than any other. It may be wrong. Only the proceedings at the trial can decide that. If they are public, as is apparently to be the case, and impartial auditors are present, as they will be, the genuine elements, if any, and the fictitious in the charges will stand revealed.
But the more completely the Soviet Government puts itself in the wrong the more necessary it is that our own Government should keep itself in the right. There are certain canons of international law and practice which govern this case like any other. Persons domiciled in a foreign country or aliens passing through it are— to quote an authority so little suspect as the late Lord Birkenhead—" amenable to the criminal jurisdiction for acts committed within its area." Russia is not among those countries on which extra-territorial obliga- tions, giving resident foreigners the right to be tried by their own consuls under their own national laws, have been forced. A foreigner can claim no more favour from the Russian courts than a native Russian. That, of course, has been fully recognized in the diplomatic interchanges, but precipitate protestations in this country, some of them by Ministers of the Crown, that the prisoners are manifestly innocent, that their arrest is an outrage and that their immediate release must be conceded, have done a great deal to aggravate the situation. Soviet Russia, as much as Russia of the Czars, ranks as a Great Power. No one has seriously challenged that. And while a Great Power may make concessions in negotiation, the one fatal course is to approach it by way of menace. That is what made Mr. MacDonald's method of introducing the new Embargo Bill so singularly unsatisfactory. The Prime Minister was thoroughly vague and confused and never to the end made it clear whether he was forging a new weapon against Moscow or merely taking a step which the expiry of the Trade Agreement on April 17th would have rendered necessary in any case. In fact the Trade Agreement could perfectly well have been extended • temporarily and it is obvious enough that the introduction of the Embargo Bill is the direct consequence of the Moscow proceedings. As a warning to the Soviet Government it may have the desired effect, but precisely the opposite is much more likely.
Even without gratuitous aggravation the situation is disquieting enough. Russia as an organized nation is an inseparable part of the world fabric. She cannot be isolated. Her policy may affect the whole course of events in the Far East. Without some measure of co-operation with her, international endeavours like disarmament, - may break down altogether. Her participation in the coming Economic Conference is obviously to be desired. Her ideas are not ours and it may be hoped they never will be. Her methods of government, particularly the subordination of the justiciary to the executive, may create grave complications, as they are doing at this moment. But on every ground it is our business to find a way of living in the same world as Russia under as reasonable arrangements as we can de- vise.
Nothing is easier than to break off relations. The most incompetent politician who ever sat at a Whitehall desk could do that in half a day. But the world is staggering under a heavy enough burden of dislocation, and world trade is near enough to perishing of suffocation, without a further breach between great producing and great consuming countries. Short-sighted and irre- sponsible statesmanship would hail this as the opportunity for another break with Russia such as Lord Brentford achieved through his Arcos raid. That may have to happen. The Soviet authorities, by a folly and an obduracy which they already seem to have manifested in full measure in the early stages of the proceedings against the engineers, may make co-operation with their country impossible. Englishmen cannot live and work in Russia without the elementary guarantees of security. But the business of our own Government is to exert every effort to avoid that development, not to court it. In a few days the Moscow trial will open. Definite charges must be made. Some sort of evidence must be adduced. The trial will be reported. Public opinion in this country will be able to form its own judgement. If M. Litvinoff has any political sense at all—and in fact he has—he will do his utmost to convince his colleagues that Russia's one interest to-day is to have the Moscow trial conducted on lines that will satisfy Europe as to the equity of the proceedings, and to ensure immediate acquittal unless evidence can be adduced that would satisfy a British or French tribunal. That is admit- tedly a good deal to hope for, but nothing is better calculated to make a conviction certain than to back the demand for acquittal with the menace of an embargo.
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