Evening Post MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 1940. FIRMER NEUTRALS AND A WIDER WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 18, 22 January 1940, Page 6

Evening Post MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 1940. FIRMER NEUTRALS AND A WIDER WAR

The word p&ace has iby no means ceased to he spatken, hxA jibe f *op!hetsj of. an intensified and wider- wax! appear to be mftal^lying. Tine itn-: pression is gaininggiomadsaat things: will have to become wery wjxck iwoxse; before they begin; to 3ae feeHter; aaadj that, unless the si%sr Hinaaag ©f peace I shows through the' lefeiid *>£ war *ery| soon, its appearanoe wßlihay* to be indefinitely postponed. The pmp&Be of the winter atttaeik «m famttamdj seems to have been $0 >estahiash tswoi accomplished facts J>efoa« rspaisßg-j time—a German-Russ&an F©faad amslj a Russian Finland. Hitler and Stalin would then have entered tHae gjh&l season of the year eacle wfitih a scalp | hanging at his belt, eacfa*v3sa a laaS©! of military prestige, aaad «aA. ■ <pf j idiem ready to talk peace*-©aa Ac teas! of retention of the loot. Bat Jt-aaowj seems that Soviet Russia •••will faall 49' overthrow Finland as t&e £*eimamsj overthrew Poland, because Faaa3aad| is not Poland and Russia is* mit Gsp-\ many—also because Finland is more' accessible to third party helpi. It ka«| been seen to how small an exsfceaat lib.c! Palish collapse drew sympathy fmm little neighbours like the three* BaMcj States, cowering before Russia. But, the public consciences of the* ifareei Scandinavian democracies —-Sweeten, Norway* and Denmark—have ifoeen ] profoundly affected by the bhm M. their neighbour Finland, and Fiao-i nish heroism has inspired in *jia>; pathisers courage rather than fear— so much so that public opinion m\ Scandinavia is in advance of cautioaas' Governmental diplomacy. $fcrJ Churchill, having studied' all this, intervenes with a clarion call to\ neutrals. "Only Finland— superb,! nay, sublime in the jaws of peril-r-i shows what free men can do " Whatl is this but a plain intimation to! Scandinavian Governments that the* Scandinavian appeasement period is! over?

This resounding challenge by the First Lord of the Admiralty is by no means confined to Northern neutrals, but is European-wide, and coincides with the published statement that there is a stiffening throughout Europe in the determination of neutrals to maintain their independ^ ence. Says Mr. Churchill:

Neutrals bow to German threats, hoping that Britain and France will win, each thinking that if he feeds the crocodile enough the crocodile will eat him last. But the storm will spread southward and northward.

This expansionist view of the war, it may be noted, comes from a man who, through his life experience.and through his present position, is as well qualified to predict as is any man in Europe. His eye is on Baltic, on Balkans, and on the Western neutrals, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland. Even as he speaks, unofficial ! reports come that German troops are in Russia, directing their attention to the Rumanian and Turkish frontiers. While these reports must be treated ias unofficial, they chime with various Nazi-Communist events and trends, including Stalin's abortive attempt to make a winter seizure of Finland. Far from giving him a free hand in the spring, Stalin's Finnish muddle, by affecting his prestige, may now dominate his whole future policy, south as well as north; and ah apparent diplomatic defeat inflicted on him by Turkey in Bulgaria cannot possibly improve his Balkan pretensions. The stiffening of neutral attitudes in all Russian theatres of possible war is a new challenge to Moscow statesmanship, already called to account by the resistant Finns. Not least among the indications of an expanding war is the remark in a leading article of "The Times" that

the fact that Hitler has formally assured both the Dutch and Belgian Governments that he has no designs against them only makes it more likely that if and when a general offensive in the West is ordered from Berlin it should be carried out through the neutral countries on either flank of the Maginot defensive system. .

That view of the future involves also Switzerland—by which time the toll of European neutrals would be almost • complete, and the European scope of the war comparable with that of 1914-18.