RAID OF THE REDS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16921, 30 December 1925, Page 5

RAID OF THE REDS.

ROILSIIEVIKB IN FINLAND. I.IVKI.V DAYS IN 1918 RECALLED. "PATRIOTISM (.Mill GIvEATJvST ALLY." If ever the dread Bolshevik element threatens New Zealand like il did Fin land in 1918. there is no doubt in the mind of the Finnish Consul for Australia and New /.calami that our own patriot ism would soon put Hie Reds where, they belong. Mr Ilaraid Tanner. Finnish Consul for Australia and New Zealand, with residence in Sydney, had lively recollections of the Bolsheviks in Finland in 1918, when chatting with a representative of The Dominion.

If was early in January, said' Mr Tanner, that the people of Finland awoke one morning to find the place dominated by Bolsheviks. They had sprung up like mushrooms all over the place. and the position was accentualed by the fact that, as in most secret movements, there were those who thought sufficiently little of the land of their birth to take their stand on Hie side of the, Bolsheviks. A handful of Finnish agitators, there fore, had! helped! to make things uncomfortable, and for a time it was practically civil war. They had taken up the railways and the majority of State institutions, and looked as though they really meant business, but unfortunately for them they had) not reckoned on Finnish patriotism and the National "White" Army, which waged intense war with the Russians. ft was spirited warfare, too. a.nd the fact that the Russians had' practically unlimited resources did not improve matters. ft was a fierce baffle, but fortunately short-lived when it was found that the "While" Army «*as determined to protect ils people from absurd, tyrannical, and in tolerable domination' by . Bolsheviks. "Our greatest ally was our own pat not ism." said Mr' Tanner, "and we drove thern bade to, Russia." Although there are only about 600 or 610 of his countrymen in New Zealand. Mr Tanner is well satisfied that his little family have chosen a good country, richly endowed and wisely governed." He has visited, (he South Island. and, as if is his first visit to New Zealand', he was greallv impressed with it. His inherent aptitude for making a rural estimation of Hie country's productivity found him using superlatives. Even climate, as distinct from Australia, was one feature in particular which impressed him. Mr Tanner has been out from Finland onlv Iwo or three Years.