Aimed & Cocked

". . . Butter, wheat, barley, oats, corn, poultry, raw cotton, petroleum, wood and timber hewn, sawn, planed or dressed; pit props, pit wood, staves and sleepers; plywood, builders' woodwork including window frames, doors and parts thereof.

"The validity of the embargo, under the recent Russian imports prohibition act, is limited to three months unless renewed. GOD SAVE THE KING!"

Thus with all solemnity last week Britain cocked the loaded gun Ramsay MacDonald had been given against the trial of six Metropolitan-Vickers engineers for sabotage and espionage. The engineers' sentences were light: acquittal for one, banishment for three, prison terms of two and three years for Engineers MacDonald and Thornton, respectively, whose amazing confessions were never properly explained during the trial (TIME, April 24). Therefore the gun was not fired at once, but it was carefully aimed.

The staff of the Soviet Trade delegation were told that they no longer enjoyed diplomatic immunity. They immediately started to Moscow "for consultation" with much muttering of a trade reprisal by the Soviet against Britain.

Britain's embargo was not to take effect until April 26. It was for three months only. By unofficial count 80% of Soviet imports would be affected. Experts scanning the list announced that only 50% of last year's Russian imports would be affected. Parliament could not face the idea of banning caviar or sables from Britain--even for three months. Omitted too were the important imports of matches, fish, eggs. And the Government, by means of "observers" and "unofficial spokesmen," scattered hints broadcast that the embargo, although cocked & aimed, would not be fired if the sentences of Engineers MacDonald and Thornton were commuted to banishment. The Central Executive Committee, Soviet court of last appeal, promptly began reviewing the testimony.

The Soviet Foreign Trade Commissariat was more brusque. Retaliating against Britain's embargo, they declared a counter-embargo against British goods. This was to be no 50-80% embargo but a complete stoppage of the importation of British goods of any description. Three riders to the Russian embargo made it even more stringent:

1) "Sovfracht," the Soviet ship-chartering association, was prohibited from chartering any vessel sailing under the British flag.

2) Special measures against British goods in transit through Soviet territory.

3) Transit and re-exporting organizations were ordered to reduce the use of British ports to the minimum.

The Soviet Water Transport Commissariat further ordered chiefs of Russian ports to charge British ships higher port duties than the preferential duties paid under the old Soviet-British trade agreement.

Here was a real load, but it was not to be fired until the British embargo began. Soviet trade commissars privately hoped it never would. In 1932 British exports to Russia were valued at only -L-9,000,000 against -L-19,000,000 of Russian exports to Britain.

Moderate British opinion was best expressed by the Manchester Guardian:

"As an example of the working of a judicial system the trial has been a piece of make-believe entirely alien to our common ideas of sifting evidence through the fairness of legal procedure. . . . Taking the whole history of the case and the passion raised on both sides the court seems to have tried according to its lights and has been conciliatory. ... In no case will the Government be justified in employing force in applying an embargo on Russian imports or breaking off diplomatic relations."

Moderate Soviet opinion was expressed by Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov:

". . . Elasticity of imports is an exclusive peculiarity of the Soviet Union. . . . We are convinced not only that those countries which may compel us to reduce our imports will expose themselves to the greater loss, but, also, that such a reduction will react adversely upon the trend of the general world crisis. . . .

"Neither trade development nor trade stability is possible if the slightest friction or political clash between governments might at any time dislocate that trade, or if the governments assume the right to liberate their citizens or commercial enterprises from engagements and contracts in commercial agreements or treaties. Such measures hardly appear a proper preparation for the World Economic Conference."

In London, Chairman Sir Felix Pole of Associated Electrical Industries, Ltd., holding company of Metropolitan-Vickers, announced that the company's only desire was to forgive & forget, complete the rest of its $5,250,000 worth of Russian contracts.

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