RUSSO-GERMAN BALTIC RIVALRY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1940, Page 4

RUSSO-GERMAN BALTIC RIVALRY.

A PRETENCE of friendship for Russia and of a desire to -assist, that country has figured largely in recent reports from Berlin that Germany may, in some contingencies, be involved in the. conflict over Finland. Authoritative quarters in Berlin, a recent cablegram stated, have told neutral correspondents that Germany would be forced to take an active hand if British and French troops went to Finland, and that they would consider Sweden and Norway to be infringing their neutrality if they allowed the passage of British or French men or munitions. Since Sweden and Norw'ay were reported yesterday to be willing to ensure the safe, transit, of arms and other supplies to Finland, the question raised by “authoritative quarters” in Berlin may be brought very speedily to a head. With the issue still open, jt mav be assumed with the greatest possible confidence that a. desire to assist and support Russia has nothing whatever to do with Nazi Germany’s reported inclination to intervene in Finland. On the other hand, it is not in doubt that actual and deep concern has been awakened in Germany by the invasion of Finland and the prospects it opens up. This concern relates much less to any assistance the Allies are likely to be able to , give to Finland, however, than to the fact that if the Russians succeeded in driving' home the attack on Central Finland which meantime has been repelled, they would be within easy striking distance of Swedish iron mines on which Germany is vitally dependent. g Dr Halliday Sutherland, a well-known English author who is now visiting New Zealand, has said that the Finns are not only fighting for their independence, but for something much greater and that: — The objectives of Russia in the Baltic are first, the valuable nickel mines in Lapland, secondly the Swedish iron mines and thirdly the Norwegian port of Trondhjem, on the Atlantic. All of these objectives were well known to every intelligent Finn three years a'go and they are also well known to the British Foreign Office. For that material reason the British Empire should assist Finland to the limits of her power. Germany is under the necessity of importing almost threequarters of her requirements of iron ore and has to depend for these supplies almost entirely on Sweden, which has an annual production of fifteen million tons of iron ore and exports 95 per cent, of that total. Sweden’s richest'iron fields are in her northern territory and a drive by Russia to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia would place these immensely important and valuable deposits at her mercy. It, is not without a .bearing on the position that iron and steel are Russia’s third largest import. Il may lie supposed that Germany would regard with equal apprehension a bid by Russia for the possession of the principal Swedish iron fields, or net ion by the Allies, in the event of Sweden being invaded and inviting their assistance, directed to defeating such an attempt. The Allies could hardly intervene on behalf of Sweden unless Norway made common cause with her in opposing Russia and in inviting Allied help. Most of the ore output from the Swedish northern iron fields is conveyed by rail to the Norwegian port of Narvik and there shipped.'

The total situation at present, holds complicated possibilities. Whether Allied intervention on behalf of Sweden is in prospect or not, Germany’s vital iron supplies from that country are in some measure jeopardised. The Russian invasion'of Finland undoubtedly constitutes a potential threat to the Swedish iron fields and al anything but the most immediate view Russo-German rivalry in the Baltic counts for vastly more than the present Soviet-Nazi partnership. It may be believed very easily, in the circumstances, that the Nazis an’ genuinely desirous of invading Finland, by no means with the Pdea of supporting Russia, but rather with a view to doing everything possible to maintain and safeguard their own interests where Swedish iron and other vital factors are concerned,