OFFER OF ALL POSSIBLE HELP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 March 1940, Page 7

OFFER OF ALL POSSIBLE HELP

Under Covenant of League of Nations STATEMENT BY BRITISH PRIME MINISTER DETAILS OF RUSSIAN PROPOSALS A statement regarding the negotiations between Finland and Russia was made by the Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain, in the House of Commons, Daventry reports. The British and French governments, Mr Chamberlain said, were continuing to send valuable material,assistance to Finland and had already informed the Finnish Government that they were prepared, in response to any appeal for further'aid, to help Finland with all the resources at their disposal. No request for further aid had yet been received from the Finnish Government. Mr Chamberlain said that any aid sent to Finland was m fulfilment of obligations under the Covenant of the League of Nations. A Labour member asked: “Is this not tantamount to our going to war with Russia?”Mr Chamberlain: “It has not gone as far as that yet. 1 ’ It was not true to say, said Air Chamberlain, that the British Government had been asked to mediate between Finland and Russia. On February 22, the Soviet. Ambassador in London, M. Maisky, called on Mr R. A. Butler, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and ipul forward certain terms, which he invited the British Government to place before Finland. These terms were so onerous and left Finland in such a helpless and defenceless position that the British Government did not. leel able 1.0 place them before Finland. A lew days later the British Minister in Helsinki told the Finnish Government of the Russian approach in London. At about the same time that, the matter was opened in London, a similar approach was made to Sweden and the Swedish Government placed the terms before Finland. The terms required the surrender of all territory round Lake Ladoga, Viborg and other Finnish towns, the whole of Ihe Karelian Isthmus, islands in the Gulf of Finland now occupied by the Soviet, and a long lease of an area for a naval base. These, it was thought, were the same demands that had been presented to the Finnish delegates now in Moscow. • According to a Helsinki report, M. Tanner, Finnish Foreign Minister, states that the negotiations with the Soviet are still going on and that the Finnish delegates are still in Moscow. They have not accepted the Russian terms. This corrects a previous statement that the delegates had left Moscow.