sound to a Scotsman I could not discover any
difference between the air one side of the river
and the other neither could I see any difference
in the look of the people—they walked
about as aimlessly as elsewhere. Of course
they speak a sort of language a little difficult
for a Londoner to understand, and occasionally
wear skirts and kilts—the utility of
which is past the comprehension of a mere
southerner. I was reminded of these incidents
when standing on the Finnish side of the Httle
river, the middle of which forms the imaginary
border line between Russia and Finland. The
men and women on both sides looked exactly
alike most of them spoke the same language.
And yet each side of the river is an armed
camp. People on the Finnish side are armed
to defend a capitalist republic, on the Russian
side to defend a social revolution. Only on
one side, and that the Russian, did the fighters
understand that frontiers are not real dividing
lines these days—that only systems really
divide, all else being makebelieve.
Before the revolution the train service from Helsingfors to Petrograd and Moscow and then on across Russia was the most efficient in that part of the world. To-day, with neither coal nor oil available, and with wood only for use on the locomotives, the service is anything but efficient. In addition, the railway bridge across the river is broken down
