Finland's Reconstruction
Though Sweden and Norway were not prepared for the supreme sacrifice on behalf of the country which is a buffer State between them and Russia, it would be extreme in- gratitude to overlook the help they gave in private and public subscriptions, gifts in kind, and in volunteers. They and the rest of the world, and especially Great Britain, will feel it a duty to make unstinted efforts to help Finland in her immense task of reconstruction. Provision has to be made somewhere for more than 400,000 persons who have been dispossessed of their land and homes, and deprived of a means of livelihood. Efforts will have to be made to start elsewhere the industrial enterprises which were situated at Viipuri and other towns in the ceded areas. Dr. A. I. N. 0. Cajander says that 46 hospitals were bombed, 122 stone buildings destroyed and 364 damaged, and thousands of wooden houses demolished or damaged. Finland is faced with a prodigious task of re-building, land settlement, the reconstruction of industry, and starting again the normal services of education and government. British help must be given. Though the Finnish war in a sense was not our war, and though it was started by an enemy not at war with us when our hands were already full, _none the less Finland's cause is the same as ours in character and principle, and her resistance indirectly helped us. We were ready to assist her in war ; we must now assist so far as we can in peace.
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