Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/66

 in Finland are Bolsheviks. This is plainly enough felt as an outrage upon their honour. The staff of the Red Guard deal with this curious judgment and resolve that the Russians can do as they like, stop the paper or not, according to their pleasure. A peculiar view of the liberty of speech and the independence of Finland!

Another occurrence. In the middle of December seven goods vans arrived from St. Petersburg, sealed and guarded by armed men of the Red Guard. They contained spirits for technical use—it was said—and went as military goods. At Helsingfors, where the vans were to be unloaded, the authorities interfered so energetically that the unloading did not come off, but no more did the customs examination. The vans stood in the station, guarded both by Red Guards and custom-house officers. There were rumours abroad: was it firearms, explosives, or what? The riddle was soon solved and the contents of the vans proved to be actually spirits, i.e., 1,296 cases of Russian spirits purchased in Russia by the English Legation and designed for the English Red Cross. The cases had disappeared from the custom-house office at St. Petersburg. The Reds at Helsingfors thus missed their stolen Christmas liquor, and these ardent teetotallers, who poured away all spirits they found in their house-searches, at Åbo in the week of the strike alone 30,000 litres, now had to go sober all the holidays.

While this marauding was continued round about in the country, the Government laboured at obtaining recognition of Finland's independence. In the first days of January the goal was very nearly reached; the Bolshevik government in Russia had acknowledged the country's independence, so had Germany, Austria-Hungary, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. This fact, as