For Peace

The people of Finland are not afraid of realities, but we cannot much longer continue to bear the burden of a costly war, our second in less than three years. Now that we have attained our strategic goal, why continue the increasingly unpopular and costly war?

Thus, Helsinki's Uusi Suomi expressed its--and many a Finn's--fed-upness on the war against Russia last week. With the more leftist Suomen Sosialidemo-kraati, organ of the strongest Finnish labor groups, expressing the same sentiments, there was sound indication this week that all Finland was feeling the same way.

There was something in the air at Stockholm also. The arrival in Stockholm of Finnish Premier Johan Wilhelm Rangell, Trade Minister Vaeinoe Alfred Tanner, Supply Minister Henrik Ramsay and onetime Premier Juho Kusti Paasikivi, started rumors that Finland was asking Russia for peace. Finns claimed these important ministers were in Stockholm to discuss food only, but this subject is closely related to peace in Finnish minds.

By week's end a hue & cry had been set up for Paasikivi. A Stockholm report said old apple-chinned Juho had gone to Moscow to negotiate a peace directly with Moscow. Juho was sent with Vaeinoe Tanner to Moscow in 1939 before the first Finnish-Soviet war. On that occasion the belly-laughing banker had been given the job of delaying the negotiations as much as possible, so the Finns would get better terms. In most of the talks, while Tanner and Viacheslav Molotov did the hard-headed bargaining, Paasikivi swapped jokes with Stalin and used his chuckle to smooth things over when Tanner got a little heated. But his long-windedness astonished even the Russians.

It is possible that old Juho has been sent to Moscow again, because he got on so well with Stalin before. The Finns hope for better terms from Stalin than from Molotov. But this time old Juho will have to be quick to the point and clear-cut in his demands if he wants peace for Finland.

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