SCANDINAVIAN FEELING.

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 July 1915, Page 6

SCANDINAVIAN FEELING.

GENUINELY NEUTEAE.

Mr. Hans C. Thomsen, writing from\Vamgawa, submits that the attitude,. c * Norway, and of Scandinavia generally, is genuinely neutral.. '"'The fact] is that the popular sentiment in Nor- I way is on the whole favorable J t o Ens- -l and and France, but quite the reverla - 1 towards Liissm. There is a conviction' abroad that Russia is to be allowed to.-acquire-an ice-free seaport in the north " of Norway. It i s a fact that the signing of the Entente wag -immediately-'-' followed by the abrogation of the, treaty of Stockholm, by which Eng: land and I ranee had guaranteed the- - ""egrity of Norway against Russia. i Ins together with the fact that Rus- " sia, before the war, completed a. strata- - g'c railway to the Norwegian frontier-;' has considerably increased the anxiety,* ot the JNorwegians. Nor did Sir Edward Grey improve matters when irn , September last, in reply to the German Chancellor, he declared that Scandinavians neutrality was guaranteed by ■■ - the treaty of Stockholm, .1854, which said treaty he had himself annulled. «*s iar as Norway was concerned, by the, • oeclaration of 2nd November, 1907 ' Distrust and fear of Russia, the colossus of the north, seems to have been, and still is, the mainspring' of the for-- : •■'- eign policy of all the countries boilerwig on Russia. It has decided the foreign policy of both the Scandinavian countries, and is probably,also the cidmg factor in the policy-pursued hy 1 oumama, Bulgaria and Greece. In the face of tins fact it seems remark- I able that the cableman should regu- ' lOJ'iy represent all and sundry of these countries as being on the point of throwing in tl le i r lot with the Allies/5 • It is very apparent that, the only syrof i i. pathy and help that the Allies will gl *'"' is such as they can pay for'in hlrd cash and when ihe cash is at an end the help and sympathy likewise willcome to an end,. That is the way of the world all over."