The Evening Star SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1939. RUSSIA AND THE LEAGUE.

Evening Star, Issue 23451, 16 December 1939, Page 10

The Evening Star SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1939. RUSSIA AND THE LEAGUE.

The League of Nations, in dealing with the assault on Finland, has at least shown two things. It retains convictions and it has the courage of them. There is nothing half-inch about its resolution of condemnation. The draft motion submitted by the special committee to the Assembly for adoption went straight to the point. The Soviet, it declared, had violated both the Pact of Paris (alternatively known as the Kellogg Pact) and Article 12 of the League’s Covenant, and it had denounced without justification its own pact of non-aggression with Finland. The Soviet’s course of action was therefore condemned, and it was proposed that a pressing appeal should be made to every member State to furnish the victim with all possible material and humanitarian assistance, that the technical services of the League should be placed at its disposal, and that the assistance of non-member States should be invoked. The Soviet, it was pointed out, had acted as if the Council of the League did not exist, and it had placed itself outside the Covenant by its pretence that a sham Government constituted by itself could sanction its behaviour. Presumably it is this motion that has been adopted unanimously by the Assembly of the League. The Soviet tried bullying to the last. : It was easier for great Powers, or States as far away as South and Central- America, to say what they thought of this footpad adventure and to act accordingly than for little neighbours of the Russian Colossus, or China, in her position of dependence, to do the same. Latvia, Estonia, and l Lithuania could not show any hostility to the Bear, because by concessions he has forced from them in the last few months he has them by the throat. The natural course for all these States to take was to abstain from voting, and that course was pursued, notwithstanding the Soviet warning that it would be interpreted by Moscow no differently from an adverse vote. The Council, with three real abstentions— China, Greece, and Yugoslavia—associated itself with the Assembly’s condemnation, and ruled that, by its actions, the Soviet had disqualified itself from continuing as a member of the League.' That will not hurt Moscow in any material way. The humiliation, nevertheless, will be felt, or so much bullying would not have been done to prevent it.

The League had no choice when its condemnation was pronounced. To condone the assault on Finland would have been to make a mockery of all its professed principles. The invasions of Manchukuo and of Abyssinia were never condoned, though their perpetrators took the initiative themselves in quitting the 'League. The technique by which it was sought to make a moral case for aggression was the same in each instance, and in spoliations made by Germany—a technique by which nobody in the world could be deceived. The outrage performed by Russia, following that against Poland, could not fail to place the British Government in an embarrassing position. The Allies, at this 'nocture, are fighting Hitlerism, and that makes sufficient task for them at present. Probably neither they, nor anyone else in the world, have much belief in the prospects of permanence of the purely opportunist semi-alliance in which Hitlerism and Communism now stand together. At any time those mutually suspicious partners may be fighting each other; it would be folly for the Allies to do anything now by which they might be thrown more into each other’s arms. The British Government supported the League’s motion. It will help Finland with supplies of aircraft. But Mr Chamberlain impresses a point to be remembered. “ German aggression paved the way for the Soviet attacks on Poland and Finland, and Germany, alone among the nations of the world, is even now abetting by word and deed Russian aggression. We must give what help wo, can spare to the. latest victim, but meanwhile it is only by concentrating on the task of resistance to German aggression, thus attacking the evil at the root, that we can hope to save the nations of Europe from the fate which will otherwise overtake them.” A question that calls for answer is how any Power at a distance can do much to help Finland ns that State is geographically situated? If Norway and Sweden were not neutral assistance would be more practicable. As it is, a problem is presented which seems unlikely- io fee easily solved.