It was known, he continued, that the Finnish note delivered at Moscow before the rupture of diplomatic relations was most conciliatory in character.
The Finnish Government proposed to submit the dispute to arbitration and offered, meanwhile, to withdraw all troops from the Finnish frontier in the Karelian Isthmus, with the exception of ordinary frontier guards and Customs forces.
Nevertheless, Mr. Chamberlain said, on Tuesday night the Soviets denounced the' Soviet-Finnish nonaggression pact, which had been expressly designed to ensure a setilement of all disputes, like this one, peacefully.
His Majesty's Government observed these developments with increasing concern, They found it difficult to believe that strategical measures of such scope and importance, as were suggested, should be considered necessary to protect the Soviet Union against a country as small as Finland.
Late last night, the Prime Minister proceeded, M. Molotov (Soviet Foreign Commissar) broadcast a statement, in the course of which he is officially as having denied a suggestion, ich he attributed to the foreign press, that a Soviet attack on Finl; was intended.
Yea few hours afterwards, Mr. Chamberlain declared, it is understood that Soviet forces invaded Finnish territory in several sections of the frontier and dropped incendiary bombs on an aerodrome in the neighbourhood of Helsinki.
Later, he added, it was reported that Helsinki, Viborg and other centres were bombed, in some cases with loss of life—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.