Foreign Office.

Part of Orders of the Day — Supply. — [14TH Allotted Day.] – in the House of Commons at on 7 July 1924.

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Photo of Major Guy Kindersley Major Guy Kindersley , Hitchin

The last part reads: subject always to legislation generally applicable in the respective countries. If that simply means that the Soviet Government can pass legislation preventing any British subject from carrying on trade in Russian territories, all I can say is that the whole trading agreement is an absolute farce. I want to know if that is the way they read it. Do they rely on that Clause for what they have done? There is no doubt that time and again British subjects have gone to Russia to try to trade and have been thrown into prison, their employés have been put into prison, their offices closed and their goods confiscated. Have we ever treated in the same way one single Russian who came here? Of course not. We want reciprocal treatment. This is a most extraordinary thing. I do not think hon. Members opposite quite realise one of the great difficulties of trade with Russia. If a business man goes to Russia to develop trade he is looked upon with suspicion. He is regarded as a spy and is watched by secret agents, just as the Russian Delegation here are watched by their secret agents. They cannot understand a business man going out to do business honestly, and think he is a spy. There are extraordinary offences in Russia. They are described as "economic espionage" and "economic counter revolution." They are unknown to the law of any other country in Europe, and are entirely Russian. No one knows what they mean. For instance, if you supply information about Russia to persons abroad on any economie subject, that is regarded as espionage. A large part of any business consists of going to a country, finding out its needs, its manufactures and its economic conditions. In Russia that is called "economic espionage." If you talked to anyone in Russia about getting back property which has been confiscated, that would be called "economic counter revolution." It is almost incredible, but there is no question that these are the facts. Therefore there are all kinds of offences which a man might easily commit without knowing he was committing them which make it impossible to carry on business as we know it.

There is another point. The whole staff of the Russian Trading Company in this country are the paid servants of the Soviet Government, and those trading organisations are the channels through which the Soviet Government conduct their political propaganda in this country and make remittances to people in this country who are working for them. The Soviet authorities of Moscow are afraid of having similar people in their country, because they think business men will do the same thing that they are doing here through their trading organisations. They cannot understand that a man goes to Russia for business, and not for political propaganda. If these facilities are given by us to Russian traders in this country, we should demand reciprocal facilities for our people. I do not believe we are doing ourselves any good by adopting the attitude we are adopting in allowing our people to be treated as they are in Russia. We do not gain Russian respect. They simply despise us. I should like to ask the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, "Will the Russo-Caucasian Company and the other companies ordered by the Soviet Government to liquidate their business in Russia, be allowed after all to continue trading?" If not, why not? Have the Government received any explanation yet from the Soviet Government as to the extraordinary manner in which it acted towards the Russo-Caucasian Company and its manager and the other British firms ordered to liquidate their businesses in Russia? I suggest to the Under-Secretary of State that our position towards the Russian delegates should be this: that we should say to them, "Gentlemen, unless you are prepared to give to our traders in Russia the same facilities we give to your traders here, there is nothing further doing. Goodbye!" Here is the moment to make conditions, and one of the conditions of these gentlemen being allowed to stay here, wasting the time of the Government and the time of everybody else—for that is what they are doing, unless they are engaging in propaganda—should be that they must remove this embargo on British companies trying to do business in Russia.