Without laying stress upon the influence of the Entente promises to free and defend small nations, none can understand the situation that has arisen since the armistices in the territories of the former Hapsburg, Romanoff, and Ottoman Empires. These were the alternatives before the Paris peacemakers: treating all subject nationalities alike, in a spirit of impartial justice, with the idea of establishing a tolerable new world order; or blowing hot or cold upon the aspirations and claims of subject nationalities, with the aim of advancing the particular selfish interests of the strongest members of the conference.

The inability of President Wilson to resist the pressure brought to bear upon him by his European colleagues made the latter choice inevitable. Had it been possible for Great Britain, France, and Italy to agree upon a common policy by mutual sacrifices and compromises and a delimitation of spheres of influence, they could have played favorites among the small nations and emancipated races, and played them to win. The political organisms would have endured as Entente statesmen created them, and the frontiers as Entente statesmen drew them. But because those whose combined forces alone could have established peace have followed divergent and conflicting policies and do not play the same favorites, not a single new frontier line in central and eastern Europe and in western Asia is as yet definitely settled.

The first examples of independent action, in defiance of the treaties and the agreement to act together, was the seizure of Fiume by the Italian irregulars soon after the Treaty of St.-Germain was signed. Gabriele d’Annunzio demonstrated how easy it was to resist both Supreme Council and League. Then General Gouraud, officially responsible to France, violated spirit and letter of Article XXII of the Covenant by seizing Damascus. The unwillingness of members of the Council of the League to abide by the Covenant led to other breaches of good faith and disturbances of the precarious peace. For lawlessness breeds lawlessness. How can the great powers expect smaller states to respect principles of international equity which they themselves ignore? Refusing to recognize the authority of the League and the binding character of an armistice entered into by his own government, the Polish General Zeligowski invaded Lithuania in October, 1920, took possession of the capital, Vilna, and gave battle merrily to the Lithuanians. Because he knew that he had Poland and France behind him, Zeligowski had no fear of being called to account. The Poles did the same thing in Upper Silesia a year and a half later. The Lithuanians in January, 1923, made a coup d’État in Memel, against which the Poles cried loud and long.

The Zeligowski escapade accelerated the whirl of the international whirlpool more than those of d’Annunzio and Gouraud. For this refractory general mixed things up and discredited the League in the most dangerous spot in Europe. Differences between Jugoslavs and Italians, and between Arabs and French, did not threaten so seriously the general peace as events in the border-land of Germany, Russia, and Poland. The support Poland gave to Zeligowski—or, at least, her failure to suppress him, as Italy finally did d’Annunzio—jeopardized the existence of Poland. For among the border states of the Romanoff and Hohenzollern Empires it is either live and let live or repartition. Unless one believes that the German and Russian races have been crushed into impotence, Occidental Europe will play a losing game in establishing Poland as the lone sentinel, at the expense of her neighbors, between Germany and Russia. In debating the permanent success of France’s occupation of the Ruhr, Russia is the unknown factor. And whether Russia will or can help Germany depends fully as much upon the new Baltic republics as upon Poland.

Finland had a good start over her less fortunately situated sister republics. During the war she was not a battle-ground, and when the Petrograd revolution precipitated the collapse of the Russian Empire the Finns were able to proclaim and maintain their independence. They were off in a corner by themselves and not on the path to the place where the Bolshevists wanted to go. No other state laid claim to any portion of their territory other than the Aaland Islands. They were able to harp back to the Treaty of Vienna, which had stipulated the preservation of the integrity and autonomy of the Duchy of Finland, and had sanctioned only a personal union with the Russian Empire. The Czar was to be Duke of Finland. The Finns argued with reason that the disappearance of the Czar annulled ipso facto the union with the Russian Empire. This paved the way to a speedy recognition of the independence of Finland by the Entente Powers and neutrals, and the admission of Finland to the League of Nations.

The successive revolutionary Governments in Russia made no objection to the secession of Finland from the empire, but the compelling motive of speedy Entente recognition was the fact that Germany recognized Finland and had a powerful propaganda there. Before the revolution the Entente Powers had been bitterly hostile to Polish and Finnish aspirations, and this fact won Finnish sympathy for Germany. Unlike Poland, Finland had no terre irredente to claim from the Central Empires, and she therefore saw in the victory of the Central Empires her chance of breaking away from Russia. After the revolution, the Entente Powers conveniently forgot the pro-Germanism of Finland. Being able to recognize Finland without offending Russia, they promptly did so, and began to intrigue to induce the Finns to attack the Bolshevists.

Prussian influence had been strong in the Baltic countries north of the frontier of 1795 ever since the Middle Ages. Memel and Libau and Riga were German-built cities. Almost to Petrograd a nobility of Germanic origin constituted the land-owning class along the coast, and German merchants abounded in the ports. The Baltic barons fell in readily with the extension of Russian sovereignty to the Baltic Sea in Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and became loyal servitors of the Russian Government and co-oppressors of the subject races. As readily, when the Russian armies were beaten in the World War, the Baltic barons welcomed their invading kinsmen and worked for the King of Prussia. The Russian revolution did not give the other Baltic races the opportunity it gave the Finns. The Lithuanians were under German military domination. The Latvians were in the field of military operations until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. The Esthonians soon had to cope with the Bolshevist movement, of which Reval, their capital, became a center.

At the end of 1917, Lithuania, like Poland, was offered independence by the Austro-Germans in exchange for a political alliance, economic advantages, and military coÖperation against the Entente. Intrigue and intimidation failed. The Lithuanians not only resisted with success the pressure of their conquerors, who tried to disguise themselves as liberators, but held a national council at Vilna on February 16, 1918, which proclaimed the independence of Lithuania, declared against special favors either to the conqueror or to the former master, and set up a provisional Government. Kaiser Wilhelm first, and the King of Saxony later, tried to beguile the Lithuanians into forming an alliance with Germany. Is it conceivable that the Lithuanian leaders, who defied Germany in her hour of triumph and when their country was held by a German army, have been in connivance with defeated Germany?

Real liberation and the hope of statehood came to the Baltic Sea republics only after the defeat of Germany. At Vilna for Lithuania and at Riga for Latvia independence was formally proclaimed and governments set up before the Germans withdrew. The Esthonians at Reval were already under a regularly constituted independent government. There was no more reason to doubt the genuineness, permanence, and legitimacy of these national movements than in any other part of Europe. The Baltic Sea republics, ethnographically and historically, had as much right to expect from the victory of the Entente the revival of their nationhood as Poland and Bohemia.

Before the conference met at Paris, the powers of the victorious alliance entered into diplomatic relations with the Baltic Sea republics. They received accredited military missions, and their Governments had no intimation that they would be treated differently from Poland. In fact, they were assured that formal recognition of their independence and seats at the Peace Conference were withheld only because it was necessary not to discourage or discredit the anti-Bolshevist generals to whom the Entente was giving military aid to crush Lenin.9 As they felt that their existence depended upon the overthrow of the Moscow Soviet, or at least upon keeping Soviet propaganda away from their own countries, the Baltic Sea republics were content with informal pledges. They realized the delicacy of the situation and kept themselves in the background at Paris. On the other hand, their coÖperation alone made practicable the military plans of the Entente against the Bolshevists. They allowed their territory to be used as a base of operations against Petrograd and Moscow; they received military supplies from the Entente Powers; and they were guided by the advice of the military missions in the projected campaigns against Petrograd and Moscow.

The Baltic Sea republics needed food and supplies and money. Ravaged and plundered during five years by Russians and Germans alike, they were beggars who could not choose their friends. Loyalty and decency did not seem to abide in Entente diplomacy any more than in that of the Germans. But the Baltic states could not break with us. As long as there was hope of killing Sovietism, they were ready to work with us. The complete disasters that attended the anti-Bolshevist movements opened the eyes of the Baltic Sea republics. Yudenitch, the Archangel republic, Kolchak, and Denikin had been induced by Entente military missions to attack Lenin. But each in succession had been left in the lurch to shift for himself when the fortunes of war changed. We were merely rooters on the sidelines. The withdrawal from Archangel was the strongest possible argument against an invasion of Russia. The plan of using the Baltic states for pulling Entente chestnuts out of the fire had to be abandoned. The military missions limited their political efforts to preventing the Baltic republics from signing peace.

The Kolchak debacle and the abandonment of the Archangel front by the Entente armies compelled Esthonia to treat with the Bolshevists. A glance at the map will convince any fair-minded man that the Esthonians had no other choice. It was peace or extinction. The Entente missions strenuously objected to the negotiations, but they failed to advance the only argument that would have counted, a definite pledge of military aid to the amount of two hundred thousand Entente troops to be kept in the country as long as the Esthonian Government had reason to fear a Bolshevist invasion.

The Peace of Dorpat, signed on January 21, 1920, was not evidence of Esthonian perfidy or pro-Bolshevist leanings. It was evidence of the complete military impotence of the Entente and the United States and of the failure of our blockade to destroy Sovietism in Russia. If the Esthonians, face to face with the Red armies, had refused to make peace with Lenin, relying on the “moral support” of the League of Nations, what does our common sense tell us would have happened to Esthonia? Esthonia was bitterly reproached for having signed the Peace of Dorpat by the very journals and men who, seven months later, gave Poland, in a similar plight, urgent counsels to do what they had denounced Esthonia for doing.

There is no word of condemnation for Poland because she signed the Peace of Riga in October, 1920. In fact, she was officially advised to make peace with Lenin. But abandoning the fight and establishing official relations with Moscow were used against the Baltic Sea republics as reasons for considering them pro-Bolshevist and for withholding recognition of their independence. Latvia and Lithuania had to follow the lead of Esthonia and Finland, and anticipated the Russo-Polish treaty by a few months. The treaties have now been published. They contain no provisions more advantageous to the Bolshevists than those of the Russo-Polish Treaty of Riga.

The British worked as strenuously as their allies to prevent Lenin from getting the Esthonians to make peace; but, once the treaty was signed, they accepted the situation and sought to make the best of it. Not being under the spell of the quixotism that seems to inspire our State Department in its foreign policy, and having no valid reason, as the French had, to maintain the integrity of Russia and refuse to deal with Bolshevism until money owed by the old rÉgime was paid or acknowledged as a legitimate obligation, the British recognized the independence of the Baltic Sea republics and entered into diplomatic relations with them.

Italy, impatient for some solution, no matter what, of the Russian imbroglio, followed Great Britain’s lead. France did not dare to stand out against de facto recognition. To abstain from diplomatic intercourse with the Baltic Sea republics would have been to renounce the economic exploitation of these countries in favor of the British. So the Baltic representatives were received at the Quai d’Orsay, and French diplomats were then able to work at Libau and Riga and Reval to prevent a British trade and banking monopoly in Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, and to throw a monkey-wrench into the works of the British naval machine which aimed at the supremacy of the Baltic Sea.

All this did not come about in a minute. The changed attitude toward the new political status quo in the eastern Baltic and toward the question of trading with Russia is due to the remorseless working of economic laws which prove in the long run more powerful than the combinazione of statesmen. Politics naturally yields to economics, for trade is the raison d’Être of the foreign policy of nations. Prejudices die hard. The influences working against the stability of the Baltic Sea republics at London and Paris are still strong. French opposition among anti-Bolshevists, Russian bondholders, and amis de la Pologne is still active. A reactionary group in Great Britain is ready to sacrifice the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Esthonians to whatever Russian Government may be able to stamp out Bolshevism and displace Lenin and his associates. The Russians who pulled the strings for the Entente in the various anti-Bolshevist fiascos still watch the development of the Baltic situation and refuse to admit any diminution of “integral Russia.” Polish propaganda ridicules the right of the Baltic races to separate existence. Under these conditions, the observer of European international politics who believes in a square deal for everybody deplored the Colby note of August 10, 1920. None questioned the good faith of Mr. Colby and his associates in their anxiety to convince the Russian people of our detachment and good will and to try to reconcile implacable opposition to Bolshevism with affection for Russia. The State Department undoubtedly meant well and thought it was making a masterly move; but one does not need to go further than the “EncyclopÆdia Britannica” to convince oneself, by glancing over the admirable summaries of historical facts from the best sources, of Mr. Colby’s unfairness and inconsistency in announcing in the same document that the policy of the United States was to preserve at all costs “Russian integrity” and at the same time to maintain Poland’s territorial integrity by “the employment of all available means.”

After studying the formation of the two political organisms of 1914, Austria-Hungary and Russia, Mr. Wilson’s note of September 7, 1918, to the Austro-Hungarian Government and our subsequent American policy appear a curious—and typically Anglo-Saxon—mixture of idealism and expediency. Did not the Romanoffs as much as the Hapsburgs build their empires upon the ruins of small races of alien blood and institutions and religion? If the moral sense of the world demands the liberation and restoration to nationhood of races in slavery to Austrians and Hungarians, how could Mr. Colby declare that the policy of our Government stands for the return to slavery of nations whose life was extinguished by the Russians? We asked the blessing of God upon our arms to assure us the victory because we were fighting for humanity. In our prayers we put no limit on our philanthropy.

On July 4, 1918, when President Wilson received the representatives of subject races at Mount Vernon, he made a solemn pledge in the name of the American people to all subject races. A Lithuanian stood with the others before Washington’s tomb. Neither in that speech nor in any other did Wilson say, “You understand, of course, that the victorious Allies mean to free and restore only the subject races whose freedom and restoration will be at the expense of our enemies and to their confusion.” Had he said this, it would have been a manly confession—to avoid false hopes and false pretenses—of what was afterward evident at the Peace Conference, that the yearning for humanity was a sham and the proclamation of the doctrine of self-determination a falsehood. The moral issue was simply buncombe to make people feel good and to arouse them against the Germans. Because races were conquered by the Romanoffs, have they less right to freedom than if they were conquered by the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns?

When we read carefully the Colby note, which was meant to justify the refusal of the State Department to follow the example of our associates in recognizing and dealing with and helping the Baltic Sea republics, we challenge its logic as well as its misrepresentation of the American idealism expressed by President Wilson during the war. Poland and Finland were portions of “integral Russia”; so was Russian Armenia; so was Bessarabia. Without consulting Russia, we recognized the independence of Poland, Finland, and Armenia, and agreed to the inclusion of Bessarabia in Rumania.

The State Department expert will respond that Poland and Finland had a special status under the Treaty of Vienna. Why go back in regard to Russia only to the Treaty of Vienna? In making the Treaties of Versailles and St.-Germain we canceled the Treaty of Vienna. We ignored this treaty and all other treaties in dealing with subject races of Austria-Hungary and Germany. The attempt to justify partiality of treatment between Poland and the Baltic Sea republics on the ground of the Treaty of Vienna fails even if we did accept the Treaty of Vienna as the law and the prophets. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania enjoyed an individual status in the Russian Empire by virtue of arrangements made before the Napoleonic period and not infringed upon until 1830. The charter of Lithuania was not finally abrogated until 1848, and the title of Grand Duke of Lithuania was assumed by the Russian Czar on a parity with that of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland at coronations. This acknowledgment of the separate identity of Lithuania in the empire was never given up. The late Nicholas was crowned Grand Duke of Lithuania.

From a historical point of view the American State Department had no ground to stand upon in regarding Lithuania as a Russian province and at the same time holding that Poland is an independent kingdom. The relations of the two countries toward the Russian Empire are strikingly alike. Both lost their independence through the partitions of the eighteenth century, after having been for centuries great and flourishing empires. Both suffered horribly from czardom during the nineteenth century. Both were battle-grounds during the late war.

Commander Gade, an American reserve naval officer who represented us in the Baltic provinces, justified the non-recognition policy on practical economic grounds. He maintained that these countries could not exist independently, and ought not be to encouraged in their aspirations for nationhood, because Russia needs them as an economic outlet to the sea, while much of their prosperity must come from transit trade. Commander Gade advanced this point of view earnestly and plausibly. It appealed to American common sense, which believed that in union there is strength.

But we forget the Treaties of Versailles and St.-Germain. One may have his own opinion about the advisability of the policy of Émiettement (breaking in pieces) of political organisms that represented the economic evolution of past centuries. We are committed, however, to just that policy. It is too late to question it. I have never been an unreasoning and sentimental pleader for the doctrine of self-determination, but I have maintained, as a student of nationalist movements, that the effort to limit the application of self-determination to races whose liberation helps the fancied interests of a few great powers is disastrous and makes impossible the establishment of peace.

Political expediency is never more than a temporary makeshift. Old problems are solved only by creating new ones. It stands to reason that we cannot in one breath lop off frontier provinces from Germany on the ground of the alien character of their inhabitants and destroy the Hapsburg Empire on the ground of the right of its various elements to an independent existence, and in the next breath tell other, and neighboring, subject races that they have no future outside of the Romanoff Empire. Lithuania has a better economic raison d’Être than Poland and Czechoslovakia. Lithuania and the other Baltic Sea republics have precedents that refute the argumentation of Gade and our State Department, not only in regard to their right and ability to exist independently of Russia, but also independently of one another.

If the reader will take the map of Europe, look at the location of the German Empire, follow its river-courses in relation to Belgium and Holland, and then compare the similar situation of Russia in relation to Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, he will readily see how the Gade position, which our State Department foolishly adopted, resembled the position of German economists toward Belgium. The fact of standing between a great empire and the sea is no reason to deny the right of a people to nationhood. The Dutch and a part of the Belgians are very much closer to the Germans racially than the Lithuanians and Latvians are to the Russians and Poles. Had we not definitely scotched the access-to-the-sea argument for a big fellow’s crushing the life out of a little fellow? It is disconcerting to see it crop up in our own country in official circles. The other two parts of the Gade economic argument are also refuted by Belgium and Holland. These countries have existed economically, flourished, and been able to defend themselves against Germany, England, and France. And they have existed now for nearly a hundred years as separate entities. Why should not Baltic Sea states get along as North Sea states? The Baltic Sea already has little states less extensive in territory and some of them less populous than the new Baltic Sea republics.

But Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, by asking for the recognition of their independence, did not close the door upon the possibility of a Russian federation among themselves. In this time of upset and confusion they asked simply for a free hand to look out for their own interests. As Russian provinces, with no separate international status, they could resist neither Bolshevists nor Russian reactionaries. They would be in the plight of the rest of Russia now, and to-morrow, when the reaction comes, they would have to submit to a return to the old intolerable conditions, with alien landowners and alien office-holders grinding the life out of them.

The Baltic Sea republics may develop into vigorous independent States, or they may return to membership in the political organism of a new and regenerated Russia; but in the meantime they have to live, and when the moment for the reconstitution of integral Russia comes these subject races will know by experience whether independence is possible or preferable from an economic point of view, and will be able to lay down political and social stipulations if they feel that it is wisest to go back to Russia.

We have discussed at length the attitude of the United States toward the plea of the Baltic Sea republics for recognition to illustrate the difficulties our country encounters in taking sides in questions that concern Europe. The European powers back or oppose the aspirations of small states and peoples in accordance with their own well defined national interests. The United States has no such interests. The policies we adopt upon misapprehension or misinformation, as in the case of the Baltic Sea republics, do us no good, and do others much harm. In the end they do us harm. Having no vital interests to guide us, we should abstain from European questions or let ourselves be controlled by definite principles which we apply alike in all cases.10

Since 1921 the progress of the Baltic Sea republics has been gratifying. They have proved their ability to live alone. Lithuania alone has been in hot water because she has been unable to get a square deal in her dispute with Poland over Vilna. The attitude of the League of Nations toward Lithuania has been disheartening, and has proved that the Council of the League is not an impartial body, dispensing justice among nations for the common good of all, but a group of statesmen furthering special interests. The dispute between Lithuania, the victim, and Poland, the aggressor, has not been handled on its merits, but has been used as one of a number of pawns in the game of compromise between France and Great Britain.

The facts of the case are these: When the League of Nations took over the adjudication of the frontier between Poland and Lithuania, both countries agreed to an armistice, and the line between the opposing armies was drawn by the League of Nations. Within a month after this agreement was signed, the Poles violated the armistice, made a surprise attack, and in a few days not only occupied the disputed frontier territory but went a long distance beyond and seized Vilna, the capital of Lithuania.

The methodical preparation for this move had long been observed by the Lithuanians, but when Mr. Veldemar pointed out to the Council of the League that Poland was preparing to anticipate by violence the award, he was assured that this would not be allowed. After the coup, the Lithuanian Government received no satisfaction from the Council. The Polish Government denied responsibility for Zeligowski and asserted that his army was composed of men from the disputed territory. The League of Nations finally agreed to settle the matter by means of a plebiscite, but included in the plebiscite the district of Vilna. To guarantee a fair vote, the plebiscite area was to be occupied by an international body of troops.

Russia intervened in the question. This was to be expected. Russia’s rights and interests in the relations between Poland and Lithuania are far more important than those of any state in the League of Nations. We might say, in fact, that it was folly on the part of the League of Nations to believe that territorial matters of this sort could be settled without consulting Russia. Russia has treaties of peace with both Poland and Lithuania. Her Government has been virtually at war with the Governments controlling the League of Nations. These Governments did all in their power for several years to destroy the present Russian Government. Russia, therefore, declared that the League of Nations had no business to interfere in matters that concern Russia and her neighbors, with whom she is at peace. The terms of the treaties between Russia and Poland and Lithuania have nothing to do with the League of Nations, and their interpretation and execution is a matter of direct negotiation between Russia and her neighbors.

Consequently Russia served notice on Poland that the presence of the Zeligowski troops in Lithuania, beyond the lines agreed upon in a Treaty of Riga, was a violation of that treaty, and that Poland must withdraw her troops. At the same time the Russian Government warned Lithuania that the presence of troops of the League of Nations would not be tolerated. Russia pointed out that the experiences of the last few years had given her reason to believe that the presence of foreign troops at Vilna could not but be a menace to her security.

The Entente Powers and the United States were afraid to let the League of Nations take a step full of embarrassment for them. If Lithuania is a province of Russia, the de facto Russian Government is justified in intervening to prevent Poland, with or without the help of the League of Nations, from alienating territory from the Russian Empire. Such action would be in accordance with the Colby note of August 10, 1920; for in this case Lenin would be acting not as a Bolshevist but as a patriotic Russian, to defeat a scheme of Poland, with foreign aid, to grab more Russian territory. On the other hand, if Lithuania were independent, why should she not receive full recognition of the new status? The Soviet was equally unwilling to have the question come to a show-down, because of its determination not to become involved in a new war.

So Poland and Lithuania agreed to negotiate directly, with M. Hymans of Belgium as mediator. When the representatives of the two countries met at Brussels, M. Hymans, supposedly acting for the League of Nations but in reality following a course dictated by the desire to help Belgium and France reach an understanding in regard to the German reparations question, proposed that Lithuania be divided into two cantons, and the whole country put under a joint council for foreign affairs including Lithuanian and Polish members. In addition, Lithuania was to pool her army with that of Poland. It was really a proposal for the extinction of Lithuanian independence and was refused in May, 1921. For two years the League of Nations has tried to impose upon Lithuania a boundary which accepts as a fait accompli the violation of the armistice and the seizure of Vilna by Zeligowski.

After the French and Belgians invaded the Ruhr in January, 1923, the Lithuanians decided that the time had come to settle the Memel question. The Port of Memel, with a strip of territory along the Niemen River, was detached from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, with the intention of making it a port for Lithuania as Danzig was made a port for Poland. The territory was ceded to the Allied and Associated Powers, and was taken over by the French. The award to Lithuania was not made, and it was suspected by the Lithuanians that France intended to manoeuver, after the failure of the Hymans proposition, to give Memel to Poland. In this way East Prussia would be cut off from Russia. Taking a leaf from Zeligowski’s book in January, 1923, Lithuanian “irregulars” occupied Memel, disarmed the French garrison, and proclaimed the union of Memel with Lithuania. Confronted with a deadly parallel, the Entente Powers did not have the face to tell the Lithuanians that they could not act toward Memel as the Poles had acted toward Vilna. A month after the Lithuanians had seized Memel, they were confirmed in their possession of it by the Council of Ambassadors at Paris.

This is only one of many illustrations of the importance of having force at your disposal if you hope to survive in post-bellum Europe. Since the Treaty of Versailles, from the Baltic to the Bosphorus, all decisions, all changes, have been made by and in favor of the people possessing arms and using them.

Despite the political confusion of the last six years, the new Baltic Republics have succeeded remarkably well in establishing their claim to recognition as independent states on a permanent footing. What may happen when Germany and Russia again become powerful none can predict. It is hardly possible, however, that any of these states will return to Russia unless German policy demands this solution of the Baltic question, which is most unlikely. Because of their higher level of civilization and their literacy, the Baltic peoples survived Russianization in the old Romanoff Empire. Since the World War Finland has been able to make arrangements to refund her debt to the United States, and the three other countries have all been able to balance their budgets. Financially and in healthy trade prospects the Baltic Republics are better off than any of the new states that have come into being as a result of the World War, with the possible exception of Czechoslovakia.