Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1938. LETTING GERMANY EXPAND.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1938. LETTING GERMANY EXPAND.

BLUNT and most unedifying comment on the present situation in Europe has been made by M. Pierre-Etienne Flandin, a member of the Centre in French politics, who was, five years ago, the youngest Prime Minister in the history of France. In an article contributed to the “Revue de France,” and mentioned in one of yesterday’s cablegrams from Paris, M. Flandin is reported to have said that Germany is the greatest Power in Europe and that nothing will stop her expansion. ' The question for FranCe and Britain (he added) is whether it will be less dangerous for her to spread over East Europe or throughout the world. How M. Flandin answered his own question, the cablegram did not state. The question, however, is in itself seriously incomplete and at the same time takes a great deal for granted. The question implies alternatives and a choice between them. It implies that a march of conquest and absorption by Germany eastward through Europe, presumably with Czechoslovakia as her next appointed victim, is an alternative to a general policy of German world adventuring. . It is very probable, however, that in the Nazi mentality expansion into Eastern Europe figures merely as a stage and stepping stone towards more extended aggression and domination. From his talk of Germany spreading over Eastern Europe, it may be supposed that M. Flandin thinks that the spreading process would at all . events keep Germany occupied for a long time to come and might at last leave her sated and content to settle down. Neither the lessons of history nor the recent course of events in Europe lend support to comfortable theorising of this kind. The policy of allowing Germany to expand, though not yet into Eastern Europe, has already produced disconcerting results. In her partnership with Italy, Germany has not only achieved a bloodless conquest of Austria, but now. commands the iron mines and strategic sea and air bases of Northern Spain. In conjunction with her Italian allies, similarly established in Southern Spain and the Balearic Islands, she is thus admirably placed to attack vital British and French communications. Having made these gains, Germany, with Italy more or less in tow, shows herself more than ever aggressively inclined. It seems unlikely that anything short of a determined stand by a strong combination of. Powers will prevent Czechoslovakia in her turn being subjugated. Actual events at the stage to which they have been carried make it necessary to take serious stock of the aims of expansion and conquest that not very long ago were being proclaimed openly by Hitler himself. The manner in which the Nazis have dealt with Spain and Austria, and manifestly are preparing to deal with Czechoslovakia, suggests that, given the opportunity, they will proceed ruthlessly to carry out the programme defined some years ago by one of the younger members of their party, Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz, in the following terms: — Politically it is the task of the German nation to secure the space between Flanders and Burgundy, between Siebenburgen (in Hungary.) and Dorpat (in Esthonia), and, while preserving the racial peculiarity of their populations, to fit into the political and economic power zone of Germany those eastern and southern parts of Europe whose peoples are not adapted to becoming nations. It is the task of the empire (das Reich) to transfer the rule to the bearers of a Germanism that is bound to no nation, no people and no race .... Only the German people is called to rule the earth. ( With the visible expansion of German ambition, account has to he taken of the extent, to which a number of the small nations of Middle and Eastern Europe are as visibly preparing to accommodate themselves to German designs. Boland has swung into the German orbit. The Little Entente is a memory. Rumania, possessor of coveted oil wells, at best is sitting on the fence. Hungary, with her grievance against Rumania, is ripe for German plucking. Russia is a vast, hut uncertain quantity. There are various ways in which that German spread over Eastern Europe of which M. Flandin has spoken in such matter of faet terms might work out, but it would be hardly likely in any case to contribute to the peace of the world or to' put Germany on comfortable terms with her Western neighbours. It might easily lead directly to such a blaze of war as the world has never yet seen. No reasoned faith can be placed in the idea that the application to Nazi’ Germany of the policy of feeding the tiger, or letting the tiger feed, will serve any good purpose. The best hope of democracy is, as it has been, in the reestablishment of international law. Today this re-estab-lishment entails a vastly more difficult, onerous and dangerous task than would have been entailed had the right effort been made even two or three years ago, but little enough is to be hoped from allowing international lawlessness to extend in any direction unchecked.