New Britain herald., 1918-09-21
In Finland.
( Manchester, Eng, Guardian)


 In a sense, of course, it is true, as MT. Balfour says, that the Consttu- tion of Finland is not a concern of ours; true in the sense that it is for the people of Finland to determine for themselves how they shall be governed. But we are in the midst of a great war with a desperate and ruthless enemy. What if, by violence or guile, he should impose upon Fin land a system of government devised to suit his purposes, and set up there a ruler to act as his instrument against us in the present struggle? Could we then remain indifferent? Clearly not. We should be com pelled, in that event to form judgment on the Finnish Constitu- ton, and shape our own policy to- wards Finland accordingly. Some thing of this kind is actually happen ing. The Finnish Government are at tempting to set up a form of mon- archical government. They intro duced-a measure of that kind, which was debated in the Diet and only withdrawn after it was made plain that it could not secure the two thirds majority prescribed by the Constitution. The project has not been abandoned. Quite probably it will be taken up again, and perhaps, as constitutional means fail, be put into execution illegally and violently. The character of the proposed Con- stitution is worthy of note. The mon archy projected by the Finnish Gov- ernment Is not such as we know in England, or as Norway and Den mark or even Sweden know. It is pure Prussian in type. The King is to have the executive power; he is this is significant-to decide Fin lands foreign relations: he is to have an absolute veto on all bills affecting the Constitution, agriculture, and trade. Add that the Finnish Gov ernment contemplates putting on the throne certainly a German Prince and probably a Prussian Prince, and it will be seen how nearly we are af- fected by this Finnish Constitution making. It is intended merely to put the seal upon the double revolution effected by the present rulers of Fin land-the overthrow and subjection of the mass of the Finnish people to themselves, and the subjection of Finland to Germany.
 Here in England insufficient atten- tion has been given to both these strokes. When the Finnish upper classes, with German help, defeated the Red party, which shared the ideas of the Russian Bolsheviks, they proceeded with a violence which inn proved upon the worst charged against the Reds themselves. Seven thousand persons were shot down by them in cold blood Every labor pa per was suppressed. Every working class stitution-bo okshops, librar- ies, meeting houses-Was destroyed or Confiscated. All but one of the eighty Socialist members of the Diet were killed, driven into exile, or eX- cluded from the Diet. There are some 80000 Red prisoners now in confinement. They are ravaged by disease and hunger-eyeWitneSSe re- port that they are driven by lack of food to eat grass. They are to be tried by special courts, and it is be- ing assumed that not less than 6O,OOO will be sentenced to long terms. In the Diet it has actually been proposed that these prisoners should be hand ed over to work in the German pot ash mines in return for nitrate. One of the leading organs of the Govern ment demands that the children of the prisoners shall be taken away from their parents, placed under the Poor Law, and supported by the local authorities in schools and colonies, because their own mothers would in- spire them with their own "indescrib- able bitterness'' and "bottom1ess hat red of the bourgeois and the whites" Such is the temper in which the present rulers of Finland regard their own countrymen of the pro letariat'' They add to this fierceness of class hatred a fierce race hatred. The Films have practically ejected the Finnish Swedes from the Govern ment, and they contemplated depr1V- ing them of freedom to employ their own language and develop their own culture The latest measure of the Government is a decree expelllng all the Jews from Finland, and edlct by which Finland secures unique pre- eminence in the contemporary world for mediaeval obscurantism. To it's mercilesS class, race, and religious persecution the Finnish Government adds an extravagant imperialism. Here it comes into conflict directly not only with allied principles, but with allied interests.
 Although it is obscure what steps are actually being taken to realize these ambitions, the Regent and members of the Finnish Senate or Cabinet have set forth that now is the time to secure a great Finland which shall embrace the Murman coast and Russian Karelia. We might be indifferent to these pretensions but for the fact that we are at war with German, Germany is the master
 i- hoi, cited to these adventures in aggres- sion by her German master Finland on the Murman coast means German bn