DRAGGED INTO WAR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 134, 7 May 1940, Page 8

DRAGGED INTO WAR

UNHAPPY NORWAY. GERMANY’S GUILT. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 5. Professor Ivoht (Norwegian Foreign Minister), in his broadcast to the Norwegian people, said he had come to London to confer with the British Government as to the best way of helping Norway. He was also going to Paris before returning to Norway. “I have seen a lot of destruction by the German military machine in Norway,” ho sa.d. “Their bombs have devastated beautiful, peaceful places in the valleys and fiords. What the Germans do not venture to do against the nations with which they are.at war, they have done against us, who had no wish other than to bo neutral. That is how they treat a Germanic, Nordic people who will not submit themselves to the German yoke. “Many ask could the country have been spared, but the question was no longer whether we could have remained neutral, but which of the belligerent Great Powers wc should join. It lias been complained that we were too strictly neutral. That is the best proof of our absolute neutrality. “But Germany wanted to drag us into the war at any price and occupied our most important strategic points five or six hours before delivery of the Note to the Norwegian Government on April 9. Nobody reading the .13 points of the memorandum placed before Norway can doubt that it was bound to lead to war with the Allies. NAZI HYPOCRISY. Professor Kolit said it was enough to consider the first point of the Note, which said that all fortresses, coastal batteries, communications, and postal j communications should form part of the German war machine. Norway would thus be cut off from the Vestera world. “The Germans say the "Western Powers are hypocrites, but nothing could be more hypocritical than this memorandum,’’ declared the Minister. “It offered the protection of our ’ neutrality by a . nation wluch had sunk our ships and killed hundreds of our seamen. “The last point promised respect of Norway’s integrity and to give us back our independence after the war, but w : e refused to believe in such promises with the fate ol Austria. Czechoslovakia, and Poland fresh in our memory. “It is perhaps, Germany’s worst defeat in recent years—this moral defeat—that no one in the world dares any longer trust a w r ord that the present German Government utters. It has rendered the term ‘honour of a German’ a term of derision.

“We deeply regret the decline of German politics and culture. Norwegians will not be slaves. AVe were not armed as we ought to have been, and we must take all the responsibility for this. But even so, our navy inflicted severe damage on the enemy, and in our valleys the Norwegian Army fought stubbornly against heavy odds.” , ' , Piofessor Kolit appealed to tlie Norwegians to be patient. The help from the Allies could not have an immediate effect, and conditions in Norway itself made immediate results impossible, but the Allies had promised Norway full aid and it was a point of honour for them to fulfil it. vw must trust in them, and on our side must not lose patience. That is our duty towards the country we love, and which we want, to keep independent during the coming ages,” he declared.