Orders of the Day — Treaties of Peace (Italy, Roumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 28 March 1947.

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Photo of Professor Douglas Savory Professor Douglas Savory , Queen's University of Belfast 12:00, 28 March 1947

I am suggesting that I have a right to protest that no boundary commission was employed, but, by a stroke of the pen, it was decided to go back to the injustice of the Treaty of Trianon. An impartial commission would have devised a line, which would have been infinitely more satisfactory to both parties. At the same time, I deeply sympathise with Roumania, though she has acquired this immense territory. I feel even that Transylvania scarcely compensates her for the loss of a territory to which she was so historically entitled as that of Bessarabia. I must raise my protest on these benches against the alienation of Bessarabia, which is one of the most deplorable Clauses in the Treaty.

Lastly, I feel in honour bound to put in a plea for Finland. When Finland was invaded in 1940, the whole House, and the whole country, expressed deep sympathy with her. It was a war of aggression, a war without any historical or political justification. We all admired her resistance and, in fact, wanted to send an army to help her. I do not defend what took place afterwards, although I know from the facts that it was under absolute compulsion and terrorism that she was forced to throw in her lot subsequently with Germany. Even so, I submit that this Treaty is doing very grave injustice to Finland. I think that to transfer not merely the whole of the territory of Karelia, but to deprive her of her access to the Arctic Ocean at Petsamo, is inflicting something on her which she does not deserve. The hon. Member for Wycombe spoke about the 300 million dollars which he complained were being exacted from Hungary. Are we not much more entitled to complain of the 300 million dollars which we are exacting from a poor country like Finland, deprived as she is by the Treaty of so many of her territorial resources? I cannot help feeling that we are dishonouring ourselves by putting our signatures to this Treaty, and I deeply regret it from the point of view of the history and traditions of this country, which always supported Finland in maintaining her independence against the Tsars. Now not only is she to be condemned to these territorial changes which I have described but Russia is given a lease of the territory of Porkkala-Udd, an area near Helsinki, where she can maintain forces, dominate the country, and deprive it of any vestige of independence.

I join with my colleagues here, and with friends on the other side of the House, in expressing the hope that these Treaties will, in spite of their defects, bring about a real peace and that we of our generation, who have gone through two terrible wars, shall at least be spared a third.