POLISH LESSONS FOR FINLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 108, 3 November 1939, Page 6

POLISH LESSONS FOR FINLAND

Finland, in her negotiations with Soviet Russia, has her eye on the recent history of Poland's negotiations with'the Nazis. Finland, like Poland, is no match, in weight, for either Soviet •/ Russia or Nazi Germany. If a country like Finland 6r Poland relies upon her own weight alone in maintaining a stiff attitude in negotiations with a big adversary, she is almost certain to fail through being over-weighted. But if she adds ballast to her own side of the scales by securing a backer or backers—as Poland did !when she added British guarantees to French guarantees —then the adversary at once discovers, in the backing itself, a cause "of offence. The Nazis gave a classic demonstration of this method in dealing with the Poles. The Nazis put the blame for their invasion of Poland on the Anglo-Polish guarantee, and named the British and the Polish Governments as aggressors. In that way Herr Hitler played the game of heads-I-win, tails-you-lose. If the Poles had no backers, Herr Hitler would have brain-stormed them into submission; if they secured backers, that would be ground for invading them. Thus both roads—all roads —must lead, by Nazi artifice, to Poland's justified overthrow.

j It is evident that M. Molotov has carefully studied Herr Hitler's double-headed penny; and Finland fears from him the same pitch-and-toss tactics as overthrew Poland. Finland suspects that M. Molotov, following the Hitler-yon Ribbentrop model, will declare that a foreign backer stands behind Finland's resistance to terms similar to those imposed by Soviet Russia on Estonia and Latvia. Not only does the Finnish Foreign Minister, M. Erkko, hasten to say that there is no such backer; he further denies that Finland is "acting under pressure from any outside Power." In fact, no Daniel could be morfe anxious to stand alone than is M. Erkko, simply because he has studied the tactics adopted by Herr Hitler to British-backed Poland. Soviet Russia's approval of Finland's neutral policy is regarded by M. Erkko as a hint that "Finland must do nothing to endanger her neutrality, or cast any doubts on it." In his anxiety to live right up to this level of neutrality, M. Erkko (studying Belgium as well as Poland) assures Soviet Russia and the world at large that "if a third Power tried to attack Russia from Finland, then Finland, as a neutral, would be obliged to use all her means to prevent this." Obviously, no neutral could promise more. But will all these declarations of neutrality avail any more than they would have availed Estonia and Latvia, had these small countries been allowed time to so declare?

What capital M. Molotov would make out of a move by Finland to secure help from a third Power is sufficiently shown Nby his expressed resentment of President Roosevelt's inquiry about Finnish independence. Even though any intervention intention was expressly disclaimed by President Roosevelt, M. Molotov took pains to protest in the hearing of the United States House of Representatives, thereby hoping to throw a spanner into the wheels of Neutrality Act amendment and arms embargo removal.