While Moscow seems to have been able to bend Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to its will with comparative case, it seems "as though it will meet with some opposition from Finland, which, according to the latest advices, appears to be in no frame of mind abjectly to surrender. What M. Stalin requires from the Finns has not yet been officially announced, but it is obvious that he is bent on securing Russia's naval position in the Baltic with a sufficiency of naval bases free from ice all the year round. [That he has demands to make on Finland is obvious from the fact that he summoned the Finnish Foreign Minister to negotiate with him in Moscow. That the Finns are not so amenable to pressure, as the other Baltic states, is demonstrated by the fact that the Foreign Minister did not accept the summons, and that another representative, believed to be more capable of dealing with the Kremlin was sent in his stead. Judging from what he has demanded from the other Baltic States it seems as though M. Stalin will require the Finns' consent to the establishment of naval bases on the northern shores of the Gulf of Finland, thereby giving control over access from Petrograd to the Baltic Sea.
He might also require some concessions with regard to the Aaland Islands assuring command over the Gulf of Bothnia, for if he secures all this the Bolshevik dream of a powerful Russian navy strongly placed in the Baltic may eventually be realized. How that will please Herr Hitler is a matter for some speculation, but it is apparent that no prudent German Government would readily acquiesce in the growth of a strong naval power within a sta which it has regarded for years past as its own bailiwick A powerful naval Ri&sia on Germany's east would prove a very considerable menace to Germany, and would put the seal once and for all on the German relinquishment of their schemes in eastern Europe. Herr Hitler when he agreed to the non-aggression pact with Russia may have thought he was merely sowing the wind, but the indications are that already he is beginning to reap the precursor of the whirlwind. He has surrendered his position in eastern Europe and faces defeat in the west, a truly unenviable position,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.