WELCOMES DISARMAMENT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 663, 16 October 1933, Page 5

WELCOMES DISARMAMENT

(Press Assn.-

FRIENDSHIP FOR FRANCE

— By Telegraph — Copyright) .

Berlin, October 15. The manifesto of the German Government indicates trat the people will joyfully renew the vov/ to destroy the last machine gun and dismiss the last man from the army if the other powers will do the same. The Government desires to examine and solve by negotiation all international questions in a spirit of overcoming war and in readiness to conclude non-aggression pacts, ensuring lasting peace. It is ready. to participate in a general scheme of cultural construction but it eonsiders that arms equality must be precedent thereto. It will suffer any persecution and affliction rather than sign treaties unacceptable to an honour loving nation. , Such action, it eonsiders, would lead to a repetition of the Versailles misery. Herr Hitler, in a broadcast, declared that nobody had tried so honestly to help heal war wounds as Germany. If the sufferings and sacrifices (the greatest of which were not realised) and also the absolutely fanatical loyalty with which Germany destroyed immeasurable quantities of war materials in air, land and sea, could not lead to pacification, it was due to the Versailles treaty perpetuating the conception of victors toward vanouished. Herr Hitler contended that the Nazis liad turned a threatened catastrophe from Europe by stemming the tide of Communism and he considered that this constituted an historical service. He added: "Yet the world which we have not harmed, has persecuted us for months v/ith lies and slanders only comparable to those during the war. The Nazi revolution is the least bloody of any yet. What would the world say about Germany if it held r, trial in favour of men who had set fire to the British Houses of Parliament for the purposes of deprecating British justice?" Referring to France, Herr Hitler said: "It would be a gigantic event in the world if France and Germany banished- mutual violence. The German people are ready for such a course. "No territorial conflicts exist between us after the return of the Saar. If M. Daladier asks why German youths were marching, it was not to demonstrate against France but to cstablish a political concentration against Communism. Nevertheless only the Reichwehr is armed. If the world shuts itself up in indestructible fortresses and builds monstrous aeroplanes, tanks and guns, it cannot speak of a menace when Nazis march in force entirely unarmed. Germany does not demand offensive arms, but the right of equality in defensive weapons which is allowed to all nations.