MURMAN PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 22, 25 July 1918, Page 7

MURMAN PROBLEM

TERMS OF ALLIED INTERVENTION

NO IDEAS OF CONQUEST.

(ADS. AND N.Z. CABLB ASSN.. AND REUTEE.)

LONDON, 24th July. A- Russian wireless report gives the text of the agreement between Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Murmajt Regional Council, providing for co-ordinate action for the defence of the Murmau region against the German coalition Powers. The agreement dcdescribes the region as the former Alexa-ndrovsk district of the province of Archangels!:, and provides :

That the Entente Powers shall equip and instruct the Russian armed forces of Murmansk, which, it is stipulated, shall be under '.Russian comma-nd.

The Entente Powers shall undertake not to interfere with Murnian • internal p.ffn.irs.

•The Regional Council shall undertake energetic precautions a.sriiinst espionage. The Entente shall undertake 'to secure food and staple requirements for the Alurmati pupulatfoi*, u.ti-:t also* the necessary technical equipment and financial assistance for the Murman authorities.

The agreement is binding until normal relations between the Russian Central Authority of the one part and the Murmansk Council and the Entente Powers of the other part are re-established. The Entente Powers' disclaim any idea of conquering any part of Murmansk, and jointly with the Murman Council declare that the only object of the agreement is to guard Murman integrity for a great united Russia. The new port on Kola- Bay is for tho time being the most interesting part of the Murman region.. "The latest maps,''

writes Mr. Arthur Pollen in Land and Water with regard to this port, "seem to give the name of Romanov na Murmanye to this latest Russian effort to get access to the sea,- and it is situated halfway up an inlet known as Kola Bay, which is, in fact, the estuary of the River Tuloiri. It is situated about 75 miles from the I'innish and Norwegian boundary in the Vai'anger Pjord. Though nearly 10 degrees north of Archangel, it is not ice-bound in winter. It is not the lowness of temperature that makes Archangel useless in the winter months, but the fact that the southerly currents from the Arctic Ocean, combined with the prevailing winds, carry the ice floes southward into Dwina Bay, and there pack them in such masses that it is neither , possible to prevent the channel being altogether blocked nor to blast nor break a channel when the block has taken place. Kola Bay is free from both these phenomena, and though the surface, may freeze it seldom, if ever, attains a thick-, riess that banriot easily be dealt with. The port is aboiit 650 miles in a straight line north-north-nast of Petrograd, and, although the railway from the Russian capital is said to have been completed, it is safe to assume that'both Germany and the Bolsheviks Would find the problems of transport and supply very important ones if they decided to despatch strong forces against the' Allies. On the other hand, Kola is about 1200 miles 'from Great Britain, and'the maintenance of an Allied force there is going to ncld to our already long lines of communication, and cause a further increase in the demand for tonnage."