NEED FOR HELP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1940, Page 5

NEED FOR HELP

EMPHASISED IN BRITAIN IF FINNS ARE TO MAINTAIN STRUGGLE, REPORT OF THE LABOUR DELEGATION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. February 10. Referring to the return of • the British Labour delegation from Finland, the British Press remarks that there always is a tendeney to doubt, the accuracy of news coming from a country at war, and says it is all to the good to receive first-hand accounts from men well suited to find out the true facts for themselves. The “Manchester Guardian” says: “The delegation's-reports give us a useful estimate of the value of Germany's partner, for whose aid she has sacrificed the goodwill of all her former friends. Nothing in the present news suggests that the Finnish resistance is weakening.

“For all her efforts and the casualties to which her inefficiency condemns her dogged forces, Russia has done nothing that can be seen to break the stalemate. Yet at any time the fortunes may suddenly change, and with the spring Finland’s burden will be vastly increased. She cannot destroy Russia, but she herself, less than four millions strong, can be exhausted and utterly overthrown.

“It is now realised in this country that this is certain unless outside aid is sufficient, a fate which will harm us as surely as it will ruin Finland. The longer the war lasts the weaker Russia becomes and the more important it is for us to see that the partner of our own enemy is not ultimately victorious.”

The “Daily Herald” (Labour) says: “Unless democracy gives a great deal more help to Finland, Finland will fall and civilisation will be shamed.”

Giving impressions of his recent visit to Finland to journalists. Sir Walter Citrine said: “It is in the serious interest of this country and the world as a whole that a very considerably larger amount of assistance should be forthcoming for Finland from this •country.”

lie paid a tribute to the efficiency of the Finnish army, both in personnel and organisation, stating that the protective precautions were the finest he had ever seen. Speaking of the Russians, he said he thought their morale was extraordiiiily bad. “They don't like the war and don't know what it is about.” he said.

Conversations with Russian prisoners, Sir Walter Citrine said, revealed many cases of machine-guns being used to urge men into battle, and that commissars had (old them that the families of men who surrendered would be shot. Doubts which he had had as to the numbers of the Russian losses had been dispelled by the number of prisoners he had seen and the quantity of captured material he had inspected. “I think Russia has supplied the Finns with more arms than any other country,” lie said.

Sir Waller Citrine expressed the opinion that the next six or eight weeks would indicate which way the war would go, but he emphasised that the Finns could not hold out indefinitely without all possible assistance.