The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1940. RUSSIAN ENIGMA.

Evening Star, Issue 23696, 2 October 1940, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1940. RUSSIAN ENIGMA.

In* discussing the pact that Berlin and Rome have made with Tokio, Air J. L. Garvin, commenting in the ‘ Observer,’ suggests that the arrangement is covertly anti-Russian. It is to bo hoped that this is the case, but even an expert in foreign affairs so deeply informed on current events as Mr Garvin cannot be aware of all the movements and intrigues that are going on behind the scenes. When a Foreign Office Spokesman in Tokio was asked whether Japan was making efforts to arrange a nonaggression pact with the Soviet, he replied: “That is too delicate a matter to take up.” It would not be surprising to iearn that Ribbentrop had approached Alolotov in an attempt to gain Russia’s concurrence in the new development. There is one thing quite clear, and that is that the dictators of the four countries involved arc concerned only with pushing their own interests. If any temporary advantage can be gained by joining hands they will do so, just as without hesitation they will throw their obligations to each other overboard if the course of events makes such action advisable. The absence of any principle in the diplomatic activities of the four countries has been made patent by what has happened in the past year. Nothing is heard of the anti-Comintern pact, aimed at Russia, which country was so fiercely denounced by Hitler, only to be used for his own advantage when the opportunity came. There is a wide conflict of interests among the four Powers. Germany, and Russia have ambitions in Scandinavia and the Baltic that do not harmonise. It has been shown on occasion that German and Italian intrigues in the Balkans have been distasteful to Stalin, while for years friction between the Soviet and Japan has been evident on the Manchurian and Mongolian borders and over the long-standing dispute about fishing rights. Japan is suffering from a sense of frustration as a result of her indecisive campaign in China, which has so greatly drained her resources. Her difficulties have been substantially increased by America’s embargo on oil and scrap iron, and she is deeply incensed over the attitude of the United States generally. Obviously it would be to Japan’s advantage, and add to her security, to have Russia on her side. There is, however, nothing on the surface to induce Stalin to become a partner in this new pact, which is stated to be a defensive one. Russia is not threatened on any front, nor is she likely to he, so there would appear to bo no advantage to Moscow’s dictator in departing from his present policy of cynical detachment in order to help Japan to pursue her policy of establishing a new order in the Far East, from participation in which the white races would be excluded. Great Britain and the United States have been seeking to improve relations with the Soviet on the basis of mutual trading interests, and Russia might gain niofe in this way than by joining the pact with the three other totalitarian Powers.