THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, December 14, 1939. RUSSIAN REPLIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23991, 14 December 1939, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, December 14, 1939. RUSSIAN REPLIES

Soviet Russia’s reply to the League of Nations has been to turn her back deliberately on the proposal for renewed negotiation for a settlement of her dispute with Finland. Previously, at Geneva, the Soviet spokesman had said that there was a fiftyfifty chance that Moscow would accept League mediation. It is apparent now that the representative of the British Government, Mr Butler, was more than justified in his insistence on the application of a 24-hour time limit, and in his ominous addendum that his Government had “ no illusions with regard to the outcome.” Bent upon the attainment of her desires in the Baltic regardless of method or of consequences in human misery, Russia has shown that she is not to be deflected from her chosen course either by argument or by the world’s condemnation. The cynical reference back, in the Soviet’s reply, to M. Molotov’s earlier Note in answer to Finland’s action in summoning the League into session, shows the worthlessness of any appeal to morality or reason as applied to the politics of Moscow. In that amazing document M. Molotov not only denied that the Soviet was in a state of war with Finland, but also referred in contemptuous terms to the legally constituted Finnish Government and to the “ war danger” created by its “provocative” attitude toward Russia. It remains now for the League to dispose of Finland’s appeal as best it can, and to decide what measures, if any, it will take to assist Finland in the terrible predicament in which that small country has been placed by Russian attack. That assistance will be forthcoming in some measure need not be doubted. As M. Holsti has bitterly declared, his country cannot be saved from destruction by international resolutions. The act of expulsion from the League would achieve little in itself —other than to expose certain of the less important League Powers to the malicious displeasure of the Soviet—while a decision to impose sanctions would also seem to offer much less than a guarantee of unanimous action against the aggressor. The League may indeed make the gesture expected from it by those whose faith in its purpose is still undiminished. But help for Finland, which, to be effective, cannot now be delayed at all, would seem to depend less on adherence to League forms than on the willingness of individual States to take direct measures for the stiffening of Finnish resistance.