"Mr. Fish . . . Not at Home!"

Russians love arguments. A thousand times in black-&-white, Soviet editors have argued that the U. S. "must" recognize Russia. To the tail of this great argument last week Isvestia, official organ of the Communist Party, tied like a shiny new tin can the report on Communists in the U. S. of the U. S. Congressional committee chairmanned by Representative Hamilton Fish Jr. (TIME, June 2, et seq.). "For the Congressional committee," said Isvestia, "to oppose recognition of the Soviet Union and simultaneously to demand official United States investigation of labor conditions within the said union -- that is literally a skyscraper of impudence ! We [Russians] are learning [under Stalin's five-year industrialization plan] to do things on an American scale, but insolence on a scale like this we never expected from people who ought to realize that they represent an important State administration. When Mr. Fish asks the American Government to demand the right of investigation of our lumber camps we can only reply : 'Take your feet off the table, Mr. Representative, you are not in your own home.' "

"Horrors." Among Britain's most militant anti-Reds is able Sir Hilton Young. He wants Soviet lumber excluded from Great Britain under the Foreign Prison Made Goods Act of 1897. To prove that Soviet lumber is convict-hewn, Sir Hilton recently submitted to the Prime Minister sworn statements by three Russian refugees that they as "convicts" had been "forced" to cut wood in Russian forests, had witnessed "horrors" (TIME, Sept. 22).

Unimpressed, Scot MacDonald wrote to Sir Hilton last week that he will take no action, declared:

"Information which has now reached me suggests that the timber industry in northern Russia, including felling, removing, sawing and shipping, is at present carried on not only by means of convict labor and compulsory labor but also by free labor. It would therefore be impossible to prove legally that any particular consignment of timber was made or produced in a foreign prison, jail, house of correction or penitentiary.'"

The mixing of logs in Russia (as elsewhere) occurs after the rafts are broken up in the giant sawmill pools. If the Soviet Government would permit, U. S. inspectors might be sent to watch each Russian log from tree to sawmill to ship. Otherwise the U. S. Congress must now decide whether to bar all Soviet lumber because some of it is convict-hewn, or to admit the inextricable mixture as Mr. MacDonald is doing.

Red Oil. Although France is the chief asylum of Tsarist refugees and definitely the power most hostile to Russia, still, last week, La Societe Petrofina Franc,aise signed a new, bigger-than-ever contract for Red oil to be consumed in France.

In 1925 the French company's first Soviet contract was for 70,000 metric tons of oil. The new contract is for 300,000 metric tons (about 2,250,000 bbl.).

Stroke of Genius. A cousin of John Pierpont Morgan is the U. S. Ambassador in Turkey, alert and able, though slightly deaf, Joseph Clark Grew. Last week, presumably because of Mr. Crew's diplomacy, the consuls of Turkey in Soviet Russia were granted authority to certify documents relative to Russo-U. S. trade.

Turkey is the nation on friendliest terms with Russia. Mr. Crew's stroke of trade diplomacy was a stroke of genius. Up to now the U. S. State Department has usually communicated with the Russian Foreign Office through the French Government and the French Ambassador at Moscow. In Moscow the French Embassy is looked upon as a nest of spies and provocateurs and the French Ambassador might as well be Alphonse ("Scarface Al") Capone.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.