GERMANY AND HER COLONIES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 112, 28 May 1937, Page 4

GERMANY AND HER COLONIES

If Germany should fail in her efforts tp secure the return of hcr icolonies, forfeited un^er the Treaty of Yersailles, it will certainly not be for want of persistently nrging her claim to them. This has been going. on for inany years now aird it has falfep. xn§ny different shapes. apd has been procjainqgd in m^ny different voices, sofpetiipes precatory and sometimes minatory. The arguments advance^ have been various, bpt mainly they haye run pn two lines— the need for outlets; for surplus population and the need for sources of the raw materjal pecessary for industri ti expangion. Now we haye Dr. Sphacht, the German Minister of Ecpnomy — speaking at Paris^ but pbviously to Great Britain- — and putting farward the plea pf food supplies. Np doubt this has bpen depmed an oppprtpne jnoipent at whiph to adyange this contention, for has not Great Britain just npw assembled in London representatives of the oversea dominions from which she derives a very great bulk oi her own fpod supplies, and are they not earnestly discussing this vf ry ppint ? If then Great Britain has dominions and colonies, spread-all over the world, frpjn which to fepd h§r cramped millious, why, Dr. Schacht puggests by implication, should not Germany, with her much greater and increasing population, demand to t»e placpd in sojnethipg of a like position? This, of cou?se, |s expeeted to carry the mpr§ weight because loud cpmplaints are epming from Germany as to a desperate sliortajge of inteynal food supplies. Thus German representations bave for the tiwe being tu.rned from an eepnomic to a philanthropic basis, a quite new npte and one that has so far been foreign tq the German tongue, at any rate nnder Herr Hitler's regime. However, that does not mean that this new presentation of the German cgse should not receive attention, as no doubt it would were ^ it not that it found itself so inextricably mixed up with threatf of one Jdnd and another. Even Dr. Schacht himself cannot refrain from pointing to the "risks," no doubt of war, that will be involved in noncomplianee with the German demand. That i§ and always has been one oi Ihe great difficulties in dealing with Germany. She has never been able . tp rely upon the jusfipe of her clajms, bnt has almp§t invariahly sought to back them by hinting^ and not infrequently declaring outright, that if not granted voluntarily they will b§ enforced by strength of arms, Had it not been for this it is more than probahle that her, claims w^nld. have met with very much more sympathetie eongideratiQa fl'Offl those who are most closely concerned. But always, either in the foregrqund 0? the background, there is this menace of a reggrt to arms. How, when she adopts this dquble attitude ean Germany hope to have her elairns djgpassionately disqussed ? Jt is ene thing to make vbluntary coneessions pn a plea of justice, but quite another to have them extorted at the point of the bayonet. In Great Britain itself there are quite a good number whq are disposed tq listen in a quite friendly way to Germany's prohlems and to assist in finding a solution for them. But they are always faced hy this threat, whether veiled or pvert, of taking what is demanded if it is not given. Concession under sueh cqm ditions could be interpreted only as a confession of weakness inviting still further demandg that could not be so rqadily granted. *