LOOKING AHEAD.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 14, 19 February 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

LOOKING AHEAD.

THE FUTURE OF THE NORTH OF EUROPE.

By H. G. WELLS, in the London "Daily Chronicle."

It is interesting to speculate, upon the outlook of the northern civilisations of Europe as it will bo affected by the war. I do so in the most irresponsible way. But in common with most liberalthinking people m Britain and America I attach a very great value to the three I'beral Scandanav-ian communities ard to the curious and interestingly advanced life of Finland. I believe that ths uninterrupted development; of these States upon liberal lines is a matter of moment not only to themselves but to all civilisation. Their contributions to human destiny are national and unique, contributions for which we may all feel an interest more active than mere sympathy and admiration. Now at the outset of the war I will confess that I had very 'great fears, arising out of many little things I had heard, that Sweden might be dragged into tlrs conflict on the side of Germany. I was by no means alone in theso fears. It was not that I believed that this accession would do enough to alter the decision of 'he war, but because I saw in it the i ossibility of another victim to atone for tlie crimes of German policy. There is no doubt ; it is patent, mat Germany, in reckoning with the chance of defeat and punishment in this vast struggle, liafi schemed throughout to secure that the weight of that punishment shall fa'll upon other shoulders than her own. Were sho fighting alone it would I>3 inevitable that her defeat would mean the cession of her share of Poland and much of East and West Prussia to Russia. And so with an amazing dexterity sha has dragged in Turkey, and if she can she will drag in Sweden, to relieve her of tho burthen which now approaches, sho can plead to Russia: "But here are my Allies; have I not given you Constantinople, Armenia and Galicia?" And if Sweden comes in, she can say also, "Take that iron eountrv to the north that you desire. Why should you also have Posen and Konisberg, the city of the Prussian kings?'' . . . And if Russia saw fit to accept that, what could we, her Ally, do —for all the brotherly sentiment we have borne Sweden for a hundred years? We should have fought Germany to li'.lp dismember a friend. RUSSIA AND SWEDEN.

But so soon as I began to hunt, out Swedes and inquire into the realities of the case, I began to see bow flimsy were the grounds for such apprehensions. I have got now so much reassurance that this nightmare of a Swedish plunge at least has left me. Sweden, at the begin, ning was, perhaps—not! pro-German, but in dread of Russia. She is afraid of Russia, not altogether without reason ; sho suspects Russian railway developments towards her northern frontier and she has been made uneasy by the recent attempts to Russianise Finland. "Now is your time," said Germany. That was a quite understandable temptation. But she has never lost ( her head, and the heavy tactlessness of Germany, tha attempts to use her. entangle her, and brow-beat her into participation, the Press campaign methods that we know so well through America, have produced a distinct anti-German reaction. Tho Swedish fleet is now watching—Germany. The Swedish mercantile marine knows only one enemy. There have b?en impudent invasions of Swed'sh waters, and in Norway something like a deliberate attempt to cut out the internal Berlin. If Sweden fires a shot in this war—and heaven send she may do nothing of the sort! —it is far nioio likely to bo against Germany than for her.

But neither Sweden nor Norway, though they have much to lose by fighting for Germany, have anything to gain by fighting aga'nst. Their neutrality is almost certainly assured, throughout uiLs struggle. And after it is over then will come the time to secure themselves against the dangers of the years to follow. In Sweden 1 am afraid Xorweig'ans and Danes and Icelanders seem very foreign p_ople; but from our longer perspective they all four look very much alike, and it is a matter of constand wonder to British and American observers that th'?y do not b:nd themselves firmly into a close alliance for mutual defence, an alliance so close as to maintain a collective fleet, and sustain a common foreign policy. It is a tiling that has bosn strongly advocated by leading writers in each of the' Scandinavian countries, and it is the soul effectual guarantee of a continued immunity. "Such a Scandinavian federation could further secure itself by powerful protective alliances with Britain and France. Neither of the.-© Powers has any ambition or sentiment or interest in the whole world that does not involvo independence and prosperity to all Scandinavian progressions. THE LOST PROVINCES.

The obstacle to such a federation hitherto has been the unsettled question of Schleswig-Holstein. That made Denmark a dangerous associate. And that question now puts Denmark in a position quite different from that of her sister countries. Tho seizure of SchleswigHolstein ha; always weighed upon tho conscience of Britain. We ought to have met Prussianism then; it is a bail spot in our history, and there could be n,» more popular thing in Britain todav. after half a century, than the restoration of these lost provinces to their proper owners. It has never entered our minds to expei t that in the face of a still unbeaten Germany Denmark could take up arms for the recovery of her lost people. Untd we ar e in a 'position to support Denmark adequately we should deplore any Danish participation in the fight. But when presently this struggle enters upon its concluding phase, and Germany is invaded. when perhaps tlie situation 111 the North S.a is altered and our naval "mis have become audible at Kiel, the moment for Denmark may come, bhe mav choose to ht the moment pass; and few people will blame her. But if she se : z(\s thi" l moment she will come to the settlement with as just and secure a. claim as any State- will have. And her strategic advantage is very great• gj le could strike very easily at Kiel. She could scarcely be. held by Germany with less than half a million men. . . And at the settlement something may have to be done— something perhaps in the nature of a joint occupation by Russia and England—to neutralise and utilise the Kiel Canal. This may mean an Anglo-Russian buffer between regenerate Denmark and Germany. Whatever Denmark may or may not do tho fact remains that the war will wipe out most of such ancient scores as this that has kept her separated from Norway and Sweden. She will either recover her provinces for good or give up all thought of them for ever. Ihe Scandinavian federation will lvecome tn* obvious course of common safety tor all theso Northern States. It is idle to ignore the reasonable fear of Russia. Russ:a remains a great world of incalculable possibilities. But. it is really open to doubt, whether at- the worst. Russia would pick n. quarrel w-ith the whole of Western Europe bv making an unprovoked attack upon a federated Scandinavia. And it. must be remembered

that the mad intervention of Turkey has enormously relieved the situation between Scandinavia and Russia. East, north, and south, since th e time of Peter the Great, Russia has struggled like a stifled thing to gat to the sea. Suddenly the way opens for her both upon the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Her rewards are magnificent as any State will have. And her strategic not only Danzig .and a double way by the Sound and the Kiel Canal to the North Sea, but also Constantinople and the Dardanelles. No British or French Gov. ernment will resist that latter acquisition now and if it did so it would do it against tins effective will of its united people. The last reason why Russia should think of pressing to an outlet across the north of Scandinavia ha<s vanished altogether. THE FINNISH PEOPLE.

But tho tale of the smaller northern civilisations of Europe is not completed when we have questioned the destinies of tho Scandinavian States. The Finnish people, isolated in race and in languag?, kindred so far as they have kindred to the equally isolated Magyar, has always had a peculiar interest for tho Western civilisation. They havo never been a fully independent people. They havo passed from the alien rule of the Swede to the not more alien rule of the Tsar. Until the end of the last century they enjoyed a very considerable measure of Home Rule, they controlled their own education, spoke their own language, had an independent monetary system, and enjoyed not only the assent but tho encouragement of the Tsar's Government in all sorts of liberal experiments (in wpmen's suffrage, for example) and social developments. For more than a century Finlancl has on the whole been treated with distinguished consideration and liberality by the greatly abused Government of the Tsar. Unhappily this state of things lias chanej?d with the; last few years. The Pan-Slavic imitators of Pan-Teutonism, in love with an impossible dream of orthodox uniformity, have prompted attack after attack upon the autonomy of Finland. There is really no reason why English writers should not speak their minds plainly upon this issue. We regret these attacks: we wish they had not occurred, and wlien we are told, as 1 was told, at tho outset of the war, in quarters I imagined to be well informed, that j Russian Government proposed to restore 6uch liberties as Finland had lost during the'r reactionary years, we hailed it as one of the surest indications of a new, most splendid epoch in the great history of Russia. Such a restoration was like a hand-clasp to the liberalism of Scandinavia and the whole Western world.

Unfortunately that restoration is delayed. It is difficult, to make out exactly what is happening in Finland, but I have been in communication with Finns of a revolutionary type, with English people recently returned from Finland, and with well-informea Swedes, and it is clear that, so far, what ha-s happened has not been restoration, but a steady continuation of tho policy of supression that was afoot ltefore the war. On the on? hand the lib-eral-minded people are distressed and indignant; on the other I am told that although the Tsar's Government does intend to treat Finland generously, the preoccupation of the war prevents the immediate arrest of the prearranged programme of Russification. Now the situation is made much more difficult than it would otherwise be by the existence of a dangerously explosive class of extremist in Finland. The same idiotic cant of being a " rebel" that has produced the Larkin irreconcilable in Ireland has produced a kind of fool in Finland whose sole aim in life seems to throw a bomb or blow up a bridge, and so make civilised dealings with Russia difficult or impossible. And that sort of fool is getting to work now —probably with the same financial assistance from Germany that, I am convinced, has been the backbone of Irish mischief-making. And just as the extremist seoundrelism of Ireland has given a tremendous weapon into the hands of thy anti-Home Rule party, so the Finnish extremist is likely *■ do bis utmost to justify the reactionaries in urging more repression and more repression for Finland upon tho Tsar. In both cases the -reasonable li'ieral-minded man finds himself assailed from two directions. ANOTHER SACRIFICIAL LAMB. Now this is a situation of which the tortuous cunning of the enemy may be trusted to take the fullest advantage. On the one hand the Finnish discontent will be financed and stimulated througn German agents in Sweden, and. on the other hand, every careless expression of sympathy in England with the legitimate aspirations of Finland, on the part of Englishmen and Frenchmen will be conveyed to the Russian Government as an expression of sympathy with the bomb throwers. Finland becomes, m fact- another sacrificial lamb caught- by tho horns for tlie benefit of German}. .We may 1>? sure that her emotions will be exploited quite ruthlessly to that end. It cannot be too clearly understood in this country that there are pro-Ger-man influences at work in Russia, and that the extreme reactionary, who in Russia just as in France or England is prepared to go to any lengths to snatch an ascendancy out of the stresses of this war. is far mors sympathetic with German ideals than with Western ideas. It i< onlv too possible that these Finnish difficulties will lead to more irresponsible. muddle-headed, ant.i-Russian talk of that lamentable pattern Mr, Shaw has so obliginglv set our antagonists. Russia's difficulty with Finland is very like our difficulty with South Ireland .acre have been similar alternations of gen'-rositv and repression, and on the whole her record upon this parallel is a I>-tier one than ours. Russia is not- reaction, reaction s not Russia. The whole mass ol Western opinion is on the s'do of Finn r-h autonomy and the free development of the great Russian people. But it understands clearly that these ends are not- to lie attained by hysterical valence and acts of reoeluon dining w 11-time. Against that sort or thing the whole mind of the West u inpiaea> lv set; there will be no surer way to cut off \\V«tern sympathy for ever from Finland. Many things we do not.understand about the Russian situation, but we have no really valid reason to denv the good faith of the Tsar and his Government. At the end ot the war. after enormous economic and financial

stiains, and with groat ancessions of now ierritory tor the victors to put 111 order, the Western Powers will be still more necessary to Russia than they ai now. If the Finns have no faith either in Russia or the West then their destruction is upon their own heads. Tn the last resort the conduct both ot Finns and of tin- Scandinavian peoples depends upon their estimate not- of the diplomatic but of the moral situation. The Germans proclaim to all the world their marvellous superiority, their their goodness; they make no secret that their victory means a German-dominated world. They have annexed Belgium. That- is the supremely significant fact for Norway Sweden. Denmarr and Finland to consider. And —■tako it. to heart ye Finns who resent the u*? of Russian in your communications «vith Petrograd—they have changed all the public notices in Brussels and Antwerp into German. From Britain and France and Russia oonie r.either boasts nor threatennigs. But note that al odd.* of one to three

and one to five the "mercenary" EngJ ! sh, tLe "degenerate" French, havo beate.i the soldier of the German superman ; that, while the Zeppelins boast, the F'f-nch and British aeroplanes do; that tie seas are ours; that for two niont is the Germans have ceased to ad\anoe, and that the armies of the coun-ter-stroke gather against them. Steadily tne ieserv<*s of Franco perfect their equipment; Britain, whicfi had never fully contemplated this enormous struggle. nses now steadfastly to the occasion. At fast is it enlarges its military establishment recruits pour in. Next year Bntain will havo 3,000,000 men under arms over and abovo its armed eivdians at home. A certain foolish fussing in the less responsible sections of the Jviglish Press, a certain muddling with figures which failed to count anything but the accession to "Kitchener's Army ' and ignored the growth of tho lerritorial establishment, havo been used by tho cnern.es of Britain abroad to throw doubt upon our national will an un inanity. But th o Scandinavian peoples will make the supremo mistake of their national lives if at the present time they do not looK westward as well as eastward, if they are fooled by the German claim that this is a strugglo between the German and the Slav for the ascendancy of the world. This is a revolt of the nations against military imperialism. It is not a race issue; it is a world issuo. The Slav's - sharo in it is the eraancipa tion of tho minor Slav peoples from Teutonic domination Tho Scandinavian mind must not be too greatly affecteu by the nearne.ss ot tho little Finnish grievance. The mam conflict, the stress of the struggle, has lain from first to last along th© western front; tho ruined cities, the trampled fields, tho starving seveu millions of Belgium, these are the key and centre of the moral as of the material drama.