THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1940 FINLAND BUILDS AGAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23618, 30 March 1940, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1940 FINLAND BUILDS AGAIN

, Finland does more than survive. A new Cabinet, under the old leadership, issues a statement of policy that has all the old statesmanship, refined and exalted by a noble reaction to the fiery trial through which the nation has lately passed. The details of this policy are worth close pondering, in the fierce light of that trial. Within the narrowed frontiers, immediate reconst ruction ; beyond them, maintenance of peace and neutrality; and for particular objects these —to find a livelihood for the homeless without resort to emigration, to reorganise defences on the basis of recent experience, to make up for the loss of 10 per cent of the country's industry, 10 per cent of its agriculture and 17 per cent of its communications, to rebuild its trade and industry, and to stabilise its finances, only in part by means of loans from friends abroad. It is a brave challenge to untoward circumstances. Never was better instance of greeting the unseen with a cheer. This ecstasy of purpose is no light-headed laugh at misfortune. The-long history of the Finns estab- | lishes beyond denial a right to utter I hopes so stalwart. Ever since the I eighth century, when they "entered into this land to possess it," they have survived grim threats of extinction. Even oppression and subjection have been powerless to do more than give temper to the resisting steel of patriotic resolve. From Tsarist Russia, well over a hundred years ago, they won the boon of complete internal autonomy, 'and although that status has not always been respected it remains characteristic of their country. Stalin and Molotoff, • even with Hitler complacently looking on, had better have a care lest on this rock of offence their malign plots be finally and utterly broken. That this belief in Finland's future is no mere rhapsody of gratitude for valorous withstanding of a tyranny threatening all liberty-loving peoples there is a succession of cold facts to prove. Freedom is in Finnish blood. Serfdom has never been known by ! Finnish peasantry. The fortunes of | war might swing this way or that i through long years of national conflict, but usually foreign respect was j compelled -by a people mainly ; devoted to agriculture. In the i Middle Ages, when Finland came ! under Swedish influence, not by any means considerate, she was treated as an equal, not as a vassal State attaqhed by conquest. As for eastern neighbours, the struggle against 'Russia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was so successful that under the Treaty of Stolbova in 1617 Finland's frontiers became almost identical with those lately broken. To have them thrown back afterward was a bitter experience occasioned by successive onslaughts in the eighteenth century, but the striking truth is that, right up to the end of the nineteenth, autonomy within the frontiers was seldom in question. Russia's collapse at the end of the World War brought full liberation from encroachment; in December of 1917 the Finnish Parliament issued a declaration of independence ; in 1918 it. was fully master of the situation; in 1920 Russia had to cede, beyond the former northern border, the region of Petsamo. So, until this recent crime of Soviet ambition and greed, the story of resurgence went, punctuated with reverses merely temporary. Does this monstrous outrage put a full stop to the tale of sustained heroism ? Unless history lies, having no message for the soul of man, the Finns ,are destined to re-assert triumphantly their claim to filched territory.

Expectation of this is soundly based. Nature has constrained the Finns to confront physical handicaps with a sturdy realism. None can question their exercise of a wisely practical outlook. Their economic life is integrally in harmony with its material setting. Prowess has been convincingly shown by them in their grappling with conditions that would have deterred, il not ruinously defeated, a people of weaker morale. Here, if ever there was such a thing, is their national patent of nobility, But whatever estimate they set on economic values there is a deeper warrant for confidence in their secure position among strong nations : their literature, their music, their "folk art," all bear witness to an abiding consciousness of a rich spiritual inheritance. Illiteracy has no place in their country. This is significant enough, but to be added to the reckoning is the undoubtedly high moral quality of the whole people. "The Spirit gives Life" is a cherished of Finland's peasantry. This it is that inspires their standard of education, their standard of "living" in all true meanings of the term. This little Nordic country has carved its name high among modern States, by solid and unwearying appreciation of the honest ways of life. If there were no long record to the contrary, the list of deeds the new Cabinet sets out to perform might be scorned as window-dressing: but there is that record, in culture as well as courage, and the. face value of the policy must be accepted as intrinsically real. Finland needs aid, and will get it on the merits of her long career of fidelity to great ideals. It could not be better bestowed ; her "friends abroad," who owe much to her that they can never pay, should regard this aid as a glad investment, for the good of all the worlcL. «