SUMMER AS ALLY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 108, 10 January 1940, Page 6

SUMMER AS ALLY

RESISTANCE OF FINLAND SWAMPS AS FRONTIER

"If the Finns can hold out until the snow melts in the first week in April they will smash the biggest army Russia can put in the field," declared Dr Hulliday Sutherland when giving personal impressions of the Finnish struggle against Russia. Dr Sutherland, who is spending several weeks in New Zealand, knows Finland exceedingly welf. He was in Finland and Lapland two and a half years ago, Ite said, and he was one of the few people who were not surprised at the strong Finnish resistance to the Rus sian menace. When there he found that every Sunday, winter and .summer, from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., the White Guard, 100,000 strong, and equipped with uniforms and skiis. practised musketry in the iorestry in readiness for the Russian attack which they knew would come. They also knew that the Russians would move in the winter, because I"inland's Ivastern frontier in summer is simply swamp. The Finns hated the Russians as '-hey hated the devil, said Dr Sull'-M-land. for they knew and detested Kussia.il rule. They could not f'orae: the period from 1808 to I'M 8, when Finland was under Russian domination, the period when Russian suppressed the Finnish language. Finnish justice, abolished the Finnish Parliament, which had ovisted for 100 years, and did away with (lie Finnish Army.