FOREIGN TRADE: Warning to Nibblers

British businessmen have nibbled so eagerly at recent Soviet offers to trade with the West (TIME, Feb. 15) that the Soviet state airline last week began making daily flights from Helsinki to carry order-seeking Britons to Moscow. But the president of the Federation of British Industries (Britain's equivalent of the N.A.M.) warned the nibblers last week that Russia's economic bait has political strings attached.

Said Sir Harry Pilkington in a speech to the federation conference in Liverpool: "It is in the interest of the peoples of all countries that (nonstrategic West-East trade) should grow, [but it] is against the interests of this country . . . that this trade . . . should be used for furthering the political objectives of those to whose way of life we are fundamentally and completely opposed . . . [We must] observe to the limit the spirit of the regulations about such trade laid down by our government." It is unwise, added Sir Harry, to invest in special tools or facilities to fill Communist orders, because "initial orders may never be repeated, regardless of price, regardless of value we may offer, but simply on political grounds."