THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 2, 3 July 1939, Page 8

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

Another anxious weekend, with widespread fear that the international tension in Europe had reached the breaking-point, has passed, fortunately, without untoward incident. Danzig, the storm-centre for the moment, is reported as remaining calm, but there is no cessation of the rumours of steady preparations by the Nazis, inside and outside the Free City, for some form of sudden coup designed to incorporate Danzig in the Reich. What any such attempt would mean is stated emphatically in the cable news. Thus a Whitehall spokesman (on behalf of the British Foreign Office) is reported to have said that if the Danzig Senate voted to include the Free City in the Reich and Poland marched into Danzig as a result, Poland would be supported to the hilt by Britain and France. "Let there be no mistake about that," he added. It is laid down once again in an Official Wireless message that Britain's attitude was clearly defined by Mr. Chamberlain's declaration on March 31 that* in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with, the national forces, his Majesty's Gov-! eminent would feel itself bound at once to lend the Polish Government all the support in its power. The position of Britain and France was further confirmed by the speeches of Lord Halifax and M. Daladier last week, and Sir John Simon at Sheffield at the weekend added a word of warning to the States which believed that democracy was bound to be weak not to mistake the unity of the British people behind the policy of resistance to aggression. It is possible, that these emphatic declarations on the part of British statesmen have penetrated the fog of misunderstanding among those who control the policies of the totalitarian States, and produced at least a temporary halt in their plans. Paris, however, fears that the warning has "come too late to make a decisive impression on Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini," who are "committed too deeply to go back now." But it can be imagined that the German policy over Danzig is not popular in Italy, as over an issue which is really not Italy's concern, and there is "manifest uneasiness" reported among the Italian people. Nor can any genuine enthusiasm over Danzig be predicted of the German people either, in spite of the efforts of Dr.Goebbels and his Press to create the bogy of "encirclement," picturing Germany as "in the unenviable position of a harmless pedestrian, robbed of all his belongings, and being invited to friendly conversations with the robber." It is suggested that "if the British seek a way to speak to the German people, the only way is via the Fuhrer." That way was tried at Munich with unhappy results not to the "harmless pedestrian," but to the people of the house into which he walked. The British National Council of Labour is trying a better way, in a manifesto addressed to the people of Germany, to be broadcast from secret Continental stations and also through the underground stations throughout Germany. It is a warning that a continuance of the "familiar process of warlike preparations, lying propaganda, and a stimulated disturbance operated against Poland in respect of Danzig" will "result in war." The visits of Mr. Chamberlain to Germany and Italy before and after Munich provoked remarkable demonstrations by the people of those countries in favour of peace. If this feeling were made clear enough to the dictators it might prove a sufficient deterrent against irrevocable action.