RUSSIA’S STAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 July 1939, Page 6

RUSSIA’S STAND

RELATIONS WITH WESTERN POWERS. POINTS TO CONSIDER. The papers have been full of rumours and surmises about Russia and the part she is willing to take against the Axis Powers if they adopt a policy of aggression. The difficulties of the position are summed up by Mr J. A. Spender in the “Yorkshire Observer,” who writes:

‘•I do not share the impatience expressed in some quarters at the slow progress in concluding what is called a ‘Ruslan alliance.’ The ‘Axis’ Powers have apparently found it impossible to convert their ‘pacts’ into an ‘alliance,’ and we need not be surprise if we find it difficult to do the same thing on our side. •‘What the Western Powers are aiming at is an arrangement which would ensure material. Russian aid to any threatened State, while leaving the nature and extent of this to be decided according to circumstances in the event of war. Why Russia should object to this (if she docs object) has not been explained to us. One would have supposed that she would prefer to limit her liabilities in just this way. ‘‘Let us at least exhaust the possibilities of this immediate and more practical method before going farther afield. The commitments we have , entered into necessarily tie our hands to a certain extent. We cannot plunge ahead as if we were masters of the whole situation and had no need to consider the susceptibilities of other people. "The Governments to which we have pledged our support want a guarantee of prompt and effective assistance in the event of war but are. at the same time, extremely sensitive about their independence and sovereignty. They would like to decide what sort of aid they would invite and when they would invite it. They would like to be quite sure that those who came to their assistance would retire when their work was done. “Nowfat some moment it may be necessary for Great Britain and France, acting together, to tell them that they cannot in this way expect to have the best of both worlds. If they need help they must be prepared to take the risk of trusting' those who offer to help them. “But it would not be wise to force this situation unnecessarily. The main point is not what can be? put on paper in time of peace but what would happen. in the event of war. Can one imagine Russia remaining an indifferent spectator if the two buffer States, Poland and Rumania, which separate her from Germany, were threatened with extinction? Can one suppose these States declining Russian assistance if they were really hard pressed? “These are the ultimate facts which govern this situation, and I ‘imagine’ that they are very well understood in Berlin. How far it is necessary to punctuate them by further diplomatic manifestoes I would leave to be judged jointly by the British and French ‘Government. In all these matters we have to look two moves ahead and ask what would bo the counter-moves on the part of the totalitarians — what handles wo should give them, wha'« new materia] for propaganda? “In all these affairs intimate contact between British and French is. perhaps, what most needs to bo stressed at this moment. Tn this respect we must be the match of the Rome-Berlin Axis, though wo need by no means ape their-ostentatious man ners