HC Deb 17 March 1919 vol 113 c1735
98. Major NEWMAN

asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware of the communication that is still maintained between the shop stewards and workmen's committees' movement in this country and the leaders of the Soviets' Government in Russia, having for its object the fomenting of labour trouble and the expropriation of the bourgeois class in Great Britain; and what steps is he taking in the matter?

Mr. SHORTT

I am not aware that there is direct communication between shop stewards and workers' committees in this country and the Soviet Government in Russia, but individual shop stewards have been in communication with revolutionary Russians and are publicly representing the state of affairs as described in the Press as being greatly exaggerated. They profess to have secret sources of information, which, as far as I am aware, do not exist, or, if they do exist, are certainly unreliable.