Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JULY 15, 1940. RUSSIA AND THE NAZIS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JULY 15, 1940. RUSSIA AND THE NAZIS.

“QN T E of the most remarkable things about Russian policy today,” an American authority is reported to have said recently, “is its enormous flexibility. Stalin is prepared for anything.” The one fact brought out clearly in recent.developments is the readiness and determination of the Soviet Government to take hold of any advantage that it sees within reach. Summing un the position in his own terms, when he was interviewed in London the other day, Mr Bernard Shaw said:— Russia’s action in taking over Rumanian areas is purely selfprotective. Russia is attending to her own interests in the manner in which she attended to them, in Finland and Poland, except that in Poland poor Mr Hitler had to invade and subject the country before Russia selected and took over her bit. Mr Shaw, it is added, said that Stalin and Hitler were two men who were most unlikely to base their relations upon mutual arrangements. Nevertheless, Mr Shaw “does not belieie theie is any possibility of positive results from a German-Russian disagreement.” Tf “positive results,” as the term is here used, mean a state of affairs in which Russia would be brought into military alliance with the Allies against the Axis Powers, Mr Shaw no doubt is right. There are some obvious possibilities, however, of conflict between the Axis Powers and the Soviet, arising solely out of the pursuit- by these parties of what they regard as their own advantage, but none the less of some interest from the standpoint of the Allies. In spite of the emphatic and abusive terms in which they have been made, Soviet denials that its defensive preparations are directed against a possible threat from Germany are entirely unconvincing. A much more credible story is told by a British United Press correspondent who reports, after a journey across Russia, that the Soviet is mobilising every ounce of its vast resources, from the Baltic to Siberia, in order to reach maximum military strength and maintain its strategic position on all fronts. On the simple facts of the ease, Russia has every reason to regard Germany witlfa measure of apprehension and she would be short-sighted indeed if she were not shaping her preparations to withstand possible or probable German attack. There is not and never has been any question of stable friendship between Russia and Germany as they are at present ruled. It has been said that in rejecting the idea of co-operation with the democracies in a peace front and electing instead to conclude a pact with Germany, Stalin believed that he had found a better way. If that belief was entertained by the Russian dictator, he showed poor foresight. It is true that the Soviet has been able thus far to grasp some important detail advantages, in the Baltic, in Poland and in the Balkans, but the prospect of its being left by the Nazi dictatorship in peaceful possession of these advantages raises another and a very different question. Faced by the certainty of a winter of hunger and dearth in the territories they have invaded, the Nazis are under an obvious temptation to fall back upon their original programme in which not only domination of the Balkans, but the seizure of the Russian Ukraine figured prominently. In the extent to which the war task of Britain and her remaining allies has been intensified, the position of Russia also has been made more precarious. Of that fact the Soviet Government must be fully aware, whatever its official spokesmen may assert to the contrary.

A COMMUNITY ESTATE. MATTERS took the course that was to be expected when the Trust Lands Trust rejected by five votes to two a proposal by Mr A. Owen Jones that the management of its affairs should be handed over to the Public Trustee. It is hardly in doubt that if it were submitted to a public vote, the proposal would be rejected with equal emphasis. It is true that in the prevailing public attitude, as this is made manifest at the annual meetings, of the Trust and in the periodical elections of Trustees, there is much to suggest that the benefits the Trust confers are placidly taken for granted. This state of affairs evidently indicates, however, that the lines on which the Trust is being managed and administered are giving general satisfaction. Certainly it must be conceded that if any ground for complaint appeared, there is nothing to prevent it being given speedy and pointed expression. It is not for a moment to be suggested that the last word has been said in regard to the effective management of the Trust and the beneficial disbursement of its available revenue. No doubt there is room in these matters, as in the handling of most human affairs, for virtually indefinite progress and improvement. There is not an atom of visible justification, however, for proposing to scra,p the existing management of the Trust. Every reasonable opport unity is a Horded, as matters stand, for the presentation and advocacy of new ideas relating either to the management of the Trust or to the disposal of its net revenues. Whether an equal freedom and scope for the development of thq Trust could be retained if its management were taken out of'the hands of elected representatives must be regarded as extremely doubtful.

The present chairman of the Trust (Mr'll. P. Hugo) and other members who defended their administration of its affairs were able to make out a very good ease. Before undue significance is attached to the fact of a small net revenue, full account should be taken of the relevant attendant factors, amongst them the necessarily heavy call made on current revenue in paying off earthquake damage and other loans, in building up reserves, in paying rather heavy taxation and in other ways. With the reservation always that there is and no doubt will be as time goes on plenty of room for the application of progressive ideas to the conduct of its allairs, it is abundantly clear that the Trust is as it stands a very valuable community asset and that it is being administered on lines that will ensure its becoming a very much more valuable community asset in time to come.