Kalevi SorsaPrime Minister, Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen.
This is the first ever official visit to Britain by a Prime Minister of Finland and we are all delighted to have you and Mrs Sorsa with us at 10 Downing Street.
We extend you a very warm welcome as Prime Minister of a country with which we have long had excellent relations and which we greatly admire.
An early British traveller to your country in the middle of the 16th century wrote: [end p1] “Finlande is called a fayre countrye … Much wine is transported thither which the people of the country much desireth onely to exhillerat their myndes.”
I hope that we shall be able to exhilarate your minds during this visit: and indeed there is plenty more wine this evening.
Many of us also remember vividly Sir Winston Churchill 's broadcast in January 1940 during the Winter War when he spoke of “Finland alone—in danger of death.
Superb sublime Finland—shows what free men can do.” [end p2]
We remember too the determination with which you set about paying off post-war debts and reparations and building up the strong and diverse economy which you have today.
We understand and respect your decision to follow a policy of neutrality; A policy begun by President Paasikivi and continued by his successors, and one which you have judged the best means to preserve the independence of your country.
We admire the steadfastness with which you pursue it, as well as the enormous contribution which Finland has made to United [end p3] Nations' peace-keeping.
We recognise in you the qualities which come from a strong sense of national unity.
One of your finest poets, Zacharias Topelius, wrote more than a century ago:
“We are nothing in ourselves, we are nothing by ourselves, but we are strong indeed when we are united in co-operation for the common end and in an honest endeavour” .
That is the enduring spirit of the Finnish people.
Prime Minister, the name of your capital city Helsinki is associated particularly with efforts to [end p4] promote security and co-operation in Europe, and above all to secure observance of basic human rights and freedoms.
This year is the Tenth Anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act; and the European nations, with the United States and Canada, will as in 1975 again gather in Helsinki.
It will be an opportunity to review the progress made in those ten years.
We shall be sharply reminded of some of the disappointments: of how far—how very far—some of the countries of Europe still have to go to meet the standards which we then set and agreed.
But we shall also I hope commit ourselves not [end p5] to let up in our efforts to see all the people of Europe enjoy those basic freedoms which seem so natural to us, as to you.
Prime Minister, tomorrow you will open the “Sea Finland” exhibition at the National Maritime Museum.
I understand that among other things the Exhibition has the world's oldest diving suit, and some of the Stockholm tar from Finland which was used to keep Nelson 's fleet afloat.
As a more modern example of your skills, your largest ice-breaker the Urho will be moored in the Thames. [end p6]
After the sort of winter and spring we have had, we could use an ice-breaker!
I am sure that the exhibition will attract a great deal of interest, for Britain and Finland are both nations which understand the sea and use it to make their living.
The logbooks of Sir John Norris, who used to convoy merchant-men round your shores during the Great Northern War of the early eighteenth century, provided the most accurate charts of your waters of that age.
Indeed I believe that they were still in use well over a century later when, during the Crimean War, a British naval squadron attacked several Finnish harbours: the only [end p7] time we have exchanged shots in anger, I am glad to say.
Of course we shall be doing so again tomorrow when England play Finland at football.
But those will be shots at the Finnish goal, and I am sure they will go in.
Prime Minister our relations today are happily free from problems—apart from a trade balance which is heavily in your favour and we intend to correct—and as our talk together earlier this evening showed, our thinking on many international issues is very close.
We welcome you here as a true friend: and I ask everyone here to rise and drink a toast [end p8] to the Prime Minister of Finland and to continuing friendship between our countries.