Show V SOVIET IE LETTES HELD GENUINE y V MAcDONALD MAKES KNOWN DATa DAT V LETTER 18 IS 8 RECEIVED AT V V VV VV V FOREIGN OFFICE V r. r V VV V V Prime Minister Expresses Belief Thai V Incident of f Me Message ge V J V Y a. a i Political V V Plot Plot V V d Cardiff W Wales Prime Minister r MacDonald MacDonad sp speaking aking bet ore a apolite p l cal cat meeting de declared lared that h lit j honestly believed to be genuine the alleged d let letter let ter tee from M. M to communists upon iaB based base V in part the protest submitted ted by the British foreign off office ice to o the be soviet vl f representative in London Accepting A the challenge p public bUc the date dates of receipts of fV the Z n Viet letter made to the goVernment goVernment- bY the press hostile to it Bin Mr Ir declared that the letter had d been Deceived li ed bt bl the foreign on on Oft the date of th the dj dissolution M f J p Only nine days daya elapsed between the receipt of the he document and the answer an he be said laid Stressing the fact that the matter had been Handled in the briefest t possible pos sible wible premier asserted that In the old days the foreign office would ha haye taken weeks to deal with the situation Mr M c onald declared unequivocally unequivocally cally that phe the British government would not brook interference from any foreign power He lie said laid he could not avoid the suspicion that the entire entire en en- tire incident was a political plot The Fhe e premier said he had received the letter from the foreign forelli office October 16 and had returned it with the comment that greater caf cae should shoud be taken to discover whether It was was was' authentic but that if it were were authentic it should houd be published im Im- Im mediately V He lie had received the draft of the foreign office protest which later was submitted to io the Russian charge d' d affaires Christian on October Octo ber her 23 had altered it and then returned returned re reo re- re turned it to the foreign office ex cx expecting that it would be returned to him with proofs of the authenticity of the document That night however r the protest to M M. M Ra V kovsky was Wall not published The foreign office the prime min mm- minister later ister continued honestly believed th the document t to be authentic and the V foreign for for- eign office officials acted on that be lief Ilef They knew he would not to tolerate tot tol erate that propaganda Referring tl to the possibility that the letter Jetter might have been a forgery the premier declared I If the letter is a forgery it shows the amount of with which we we are Bre being surrounded My experience has made it impossible I Ifor for me not t to be suspicious It If the letter is gen genuine ine depend upon it that V so 50 long as there is a labor tabor government government govern govern- ment and I am responsible to that government government gov gov- i it will handle with firmness and discrimination every every v an outside pow power r It to to with our internal affairs V I |