NEWS OF THE WEEK
WHAT stage the negotiations between Finland and Russia have reached is not entirely clear, for semi-official pourparlers appear to have been in progress through intermediaries as pre- liminaries to the more formal contacts between M. Paasikivi, the Finnish envoy now at Stockholm, and Madame Kallontay, the Russian Ambassador to Sweden. That Finland desires to make peace, and for obvious reasons, is not in doubt, but the pro-German element in her Government is strong and the attitude of Marshal Mannerheim, the Commander-in-Chief, has so far not been clearly defined, though it is believed he is for a settlement with Russia. Agreement on terms ought not to be impossible, provided Finland realises that they cannot be better, and may in some respects be rather worse, than those she had to accept at Russia's hands in 1940. For whatever may come to her Finland has only herself to thank. She chose—not unintelligibly in view of the 1939-4o war—to join Germany in declaring war on Russia in 1941 in the conviction that she was joining the winning side and would recover as the result of victory the territory she had had to cede the year before. The calculation ho proved to be a miscalculation. Germany is not winning this war. Russia is, and both her armies and her air force are getting in a position to make Finland feel their full weight. Her fate is inevitable whether it somes before or after destruction of her cities and slaughter of her population. But her position is difficult, since General Died with a dozen German (or Austrian) divisions holds the north of the country, and Hitler is naturally exerting every effort to prevent the surrender of a satellite, the occupation of whose territory would give Russia great strategic advantages, with command of the iron-ore route from Lulea in Sweden to Germany. But Finland has had her warnings from Washington, and other warnings in the shape of bombardments of Helsinki. Her capitulation is probable. Apart from its military effect, as the beginning of the closing of the ring round Germany, it would cause considerable depression in Germany itself and stimulate further the unrest among Germany's remaining satellites.
