BREAK WITH FINNS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 206, 1 August 1941, Page 5

BREAK WITH FINNS

NOT BRITAIN’S WISH

ACTIONS AGAINST NAZIS. (United Press Association —Copyright) (Rec. 11 a.m.) RUGBY, July 31.

The Finnish Minister in London was received by the Permanent Under-Secretary at tiie Foreign Office this afternoon and handed a copy of the reply which His Majesty’s Minister at Helsingfors has been instructed to make to the recent Finnish aide memoire regretting the severance of diplomatic relations.

'the British reply is in .the following terms : “The British Government received with regret the aide memoire of the Finnish Government of July 28, announcing that the Finnish Government had come to the conclusion that the Finnish Legation in tho United Kingdom should suspend its functions for the time being, as normal diplomatic intercourse between the two countries can hardly he maintained without complications. Far from this opinion being shared by His Majesty’s Government, as stated in the aide memoire, tho latter as recently as July 22 announced in the House of Lords that, while the decision to continue diplomatic relations might at any time he reversed in the light of events it had decided at present to maintain diplomatic relations with Finland although she was engaged in hostilities against our Ally, the Soviet Union, side by side with German troops, large bodies of whom, were stationed oil and operating from Finnish soil.

“The action recently taken against Finnish trade with trans-oeeanic countries,’ referred to in the aide memoire, was taken by 11 is Majesty’s Government as a result of the establishment in Finland of large bodies of German troops and the consequent use of that country as a base for military operations. "**.l n these circumstances it was clearly impossible for the British Government to continue to allow goods to pass through the blockade and reach territory which must he considered largely under enemy control. This measure was necessitated hv German action and constituted an integral part of our war measures against Germany. “Since it was not aimed at the Fin nish people. His Majesty s Government did not consider it need rentier im possible normal diplomatic intercourse between the Finnish Government and His Majesty’s Government. If the Finnish Government now carries out the intention expressed in the aide memoire and withdraws the Finnish Legation from London, it lollows that His Majesty's Government will he com polled, by the Finnish Government’s action, to withdraw His Majesty s Legation from Helsingiors.” THE POLISH PACT. The Daily Telegraph says the Bus sian amnesty for the Poles, consequent upon their agreement, ailects auuut 200,000 Poles. The Polish Foreign Minister (M. Za leski) lias resigned following a difference of opinion with General Sikorski regarding the Russiau-Polish agreement

Broadcasting to Poland on the occasion oi' the Russo-Polish agreement,, General Sikorski recalled that both in 179.5 and 1939, two Powers vowed that Poland and the Polish name were to disappear lor ever. I lie first vow was cancelled hy the judgment of history, and the 1939 declaration did not last two vcars. Now that the last treaty between Germany and llussia had been wiped out. Poland stood on the threshold of a new era in her relations with Russia. . , _ Speaking of the Nazi attack on Russia, General Sikorski said: ‘‘Without resorting to prophecy. L can state that the frivolous plan of the complete shattering of Russia in 70 days, as the German General Staff calculated, has obviously been broken. Meanwhile, the German troops, engulfed by the Russian expanse, are being materially and morally exhausted. T heir losses in killed and wounded are close on 1.000,000 aiid their military equipment is being catastrophically destroyed, so that when to-dav. Russia, in her mortal struggle with the German avalanche, enters on the road of reconciliation with Poland and desires common action against the common enemy, we set about this task with a readiness to forgot sanguinary wrongs. The tuture late of the agreement we have reached will depend equally on the goodwill of the other side.” —Official Wireless.