Foreign News: Defiance Defied

Month ago when the Soviet Government asked the British Government to remove its consulate from Leningrad, the British, who do not like to be dictated to, quietly announced that hereafter the only place in Russia where anyone could get a British visa would be at His Britannic Majesty’s consulate in Leningrad. Last week, the Russians, who also do not like to be dictated to, again asked for the closing of the British consulate in Leningrad. “Under protest” Britain acceded, thereby shutting off the only source of British visas for all except diplomats, who can get them from the British Embassy in Moscow. This did not bother the Soviet Government which is quite ready to make a diplomat out of any citizen it cares to send abroad.

At the same time the reason for Soviet persistence became known. Russia is clearing all consulates out of Leningrad (the U. S. has no consulate there) so that foreigners will find it unsafe to linger in that Baltic port where she plans to launch a naval building program in secrecy. The U. S. S. R. already has the world’s largest army—1,300,000 men—and last week new-Navy Commissar Peter A. Smirnov declared at Moscow: “We are going to build not only the best but also the biggest navy in the world.”