NEWS OF THE WEEK
ONCE more the spectacle of the successful aggression of a great State against a small, preceded by the cynical denunciation of an inconvenient treaty of non-aggression, has been presented to the world. Russia's gains and their consequences are discussed on a later page. Finland sur- vives, truncated, economically crippled, militarily defence- less, but still politically independent. The inglorious Otto Kuusinen, mid the treaty which Russia solemnly signed with him and his puppet Government in September, have silently and ignominiously disappeared. There is talk now of a Scandinavian alliance, between Finland, Sweden and Norway. If purely defensive it would presumably not con- flict with the clause in the Russo-Finnish treaty forbidding either signatory to enter into coalitions directed against the other. But Finland's optimism must be virile if, after the experience of the last three months, she feels that such an arrangement will add materially to her security. As for the Allied expeditionary force, whose assembly M. Daladier disclosed in the French Chamber on Monday, its component parts can now return to other duties. While its arrival might have turned the scales in Finland's favour, it would be idle to disguise the difficulties of supplying and main- taining such a force, or the possibility of disaster if Ger- many, enjoying all the strategic advantages geographically, reacted as was likely.
