GERMAN DEMANDS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 September 1932, Page 4

GERMAN DEMANDS

RESENTMENT IN FRANCE. LONDON, September 2. Believing that Germany, in demanding equality of armaments, has the ulterior design of repudiating the Treaty of Versailles, French military circles declare that any entry of German troops into the demilitarised Rhineland would be taken as the signal for French re-occupation. The Paris newspaper Journal,” declares that it has the highest authority for stating that Germany claims an army of 300,000, the amalgamation of the conscription and militia services, a tank corps, extension of the navy, construction of frontier fortresses, and heavy and coastal artillery. . _ ( Fundamentally, the German claim, says the Paris correspondent of “The Times,” is for full equality of rights, that is to say, the right freely to organise, compose, and distribute her armed forces, to possess the weapons now denied her, such as heavy artillery, fighting aircraft, and tanks, and to build fortifications and manufacture arms and ammunition. According to the Berlin correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian,” Germany will withdraw from the Disarmament Conference unless her demands are conceded. Owing to the economic crisis, it is possible,, he says, to make free with treaties with an impunity v hardly conceivable in normal times. Any departure from the Treaty of Versailles would be an adventure unwarranted by the inner needs of Germany, and arising from no necessity or irresistible pressure. The attitude of the German Minister for Defence (General von Sclileicter) is especially resented. “General Schleicher’s mistake,” says “Le Temps,” is that he addresses international opinion in the same tone as German opinion, when he says that ‘Germany is ready to co-operate in real disarmament but the patience of the German people cannot be abused any' longer.’ He is pushing candour to the point of insolence and forgets that Germany is hold by a treaty which no one has the power to suppress.?’-